


Overdose of Murder

by Mousedm



Category: Diagnosis Murder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-07 19:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 45,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12239481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousedm/pseuds/Mousedm
Summary: When Mark and Steve take a long-delayed vacation together, tragedy strikes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Authors' Note: This story started off as a 'wistful suggestion' for a storyline that Mouse wanted to see written, that neither of us was quite sure how to pull off. After a few weeks of batting ideas around between the two of us, however, not to mention some major-league nudging by Mouse to get Nonny to agree to write it (Nonny being initially a trifle uncomfortable with the basic premise, although she couldn't seem to let go of it once she got involved!), we decided to write it together, and it rapidly developed a life of its own. So, the story you are (presumably) about to read is the result of the first-ever Nonny and Mouse collaboration, and we sincerely hope you enjoy reading it as much as we've been enjoying writing it.

Authors: Nonny and Mouse

Rating: G

Disclaimer: "Diagnosis Murder" and the characters in it are owned by CBS and Viacom and are merely being borrowed here for recreational, non-profit purposes.

Chapter 1

Steve was smiling as he thrummed his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music. Both front windows were open, and the wind ruffled his hair as he drove next to the scenic coast, north on Route 1. The view was stunning, the weather perfect for early April, and Steve felt more relaxed than he had for a long time. He looked across at his father in the passenger seat. Mark was admiring the scenery and also showing his appreciation of the music by whistling an accompaniment to the melody, and Steve's sense of well-being deepened. He could hardly remember the last time the two of them had successfully planned and departed on a vacation together. Although they had often discussed and attempted to schedule various vacations, between the demands of their jobs, these plans never seemed to reach fruition. Steve had learned to be grateful for the odd day of fishing or trip to a ball game snatched between hectic work days.

Not that this trip was solely for relaxation, he reminded himself, his smile dimming as the original motivation behind the excursion pushed itself to the forefront of his consciousness. He was scheduled to give testimony at the murder trial of a mob boss up in Sacramento at the beginning of the next week. He was hoping that he might be finished by Tuesday, giving him five more free days with his father before they both had to report back to work. Automatically, he started reviewing his testimony in his head. The defense lawyers would be looking for a way to discredit him as his evidence, though hopefully brief, could prove pivotal in getting a conviction. As Steve's thoughts moved towards the logistics of the case, he was abruptly brought back to the present by a candy bar waving under his nose. Always attuned to his son's moods, Mark had sensed the downward spiral of his humor, and the reasons behind it, and now sought to lighten the atmosphere and refocus his son's attention on the glorious day.

"Sorry, Dad," Steve apologized with a grin, determined not to allow the prospect of the trial to intrude again on his enjoyment of his father's company and this rare carefree time together. One of the reasons he had cajoled and badgered his father into taking a week off work and joining him on this trip, even resorting to some minor emotional blackmail, was the uncharacteristic tiredness he had noticed recently in his father. Between his official and unofficial duties at the hospital and his frequent assistance on Steve's cases, Mark had had little time to relax, and Steve was determined to ensure some peaceful time for his father over the next week.

He took the candy bar and ate it with enjoyment, letting contentment wash back in over him as the waves washed in over the shoreline below. The last two hours of the journey passed in quiet harmony. They stopped the car at one point to watch some seals cavorting on the rocks, then headed inland to the mountains. Their journey led them through a town named Clear Valley, then off the beaten path on a one-lane dirt road to Roscoe Lake.

The sun was low in the sky when they reached their destination, casting a deep orange glow on the trees which heightened the beauty of the lake and its surroundings. The cabin belonged to a friend of Mark's. Dr. Walter Harley, now retired, and his wife had been enjoying their vacation home themselves when they had been called away by the premature birth of a grandchild. They were very happy for Mark to make use of the cabin in their absence when they heard about his plans in this area. The log cabin was set at one end of the lake with no other structures in sight. It was not a large cabin, but had more than just the basic amenities. There were two bedrooms, but one still contained most of the Harleys' belongings, so they would share the other, which had two single beds and a conjoining bathroom. Dr. Harley had also promised a comfortable living area with a fireplace and a nicely equipped kitchen.

Both men got out of the car and admired the view in the crepuscular light in silence for several minutes. Steve loved his home; he knew how lucky he was to stay in such a perfect location, especially on the salary he was making. The ocean was in his blood, and he loved to sit beside it to think and to fall asleep to the sound of the waves, but it was nice to leave the problems and stress of his job behind and visit this haven of peace for a week.

"It's perfect Dad." Appreciation was clear in Steve's voice. "Let's unpack the car, then maybe we can get in a little fishing before bedtime."

The weekend passed all too quickly – an idyllic rest for both men, fishing, talking and taking some small hikes to explore the area. Mark challenged Steve to a fishing competition, the loser to cook the fish in question for dinner. Steve may have been famous among his friends for his microwave dinners and love of hospital food, and most people thought that BBQ sauce was his highest culinary accomplishment, but his father knew that, given a campfire and a fish and some wild herbs, Steve could produce a delicious meal, the product, perhaps, of considerable wilderness experience.

Monday morning rolled round all too soon from Steve's perspective, and he set out for Sacramento reluctantly, leaving Mark to fend for himself. He left his Dad with strict instructions not to take the boat out into the lake by himself or wander too far from the cabin – parental-sounding injunctions that considerably, albeit privately, amused his father.

Steve would be gone for at least one night, and Mark had brought plenty of books to entertain himself. He returned to the cabin, after waving Steve off, to tidy up the breakfast dishes; then he sat on the porch to finish the new mystery he was reading. He passed the remainder of the day reading, relaxing, and taking a few uneventful walks around the lake. Tuesday morning was spent in much the same way. Having successfully figured out that the murderer had to be the business partner posing as the cable repairman, Mark set the book aside and decided to stretch his legs and take his fishing rod in the hopes of surprising Steve with a nicely cooked supper on his return.

He decided to try his luck on the little quay on the other side of the lake. This involved making his way up a path through the woods over the hill, since the lake was inaccessible around the edges. He and Steve had already explored the trail. He would be the first to acknowledge that he was no woodsman, and he didn't want to try anything too adventurous that would leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere. He smiled to himself at the picture of Steve calling in Search and Rescue to find him, and the accompanying embarrassment that would incur. Then, whistling cheerfully, he set off up the hill on the path that would come out on the other side of the lake.

He fished happily for a couple of hours, enjoying the unaccustomed solitude; but after the morning by himself, he remembered one of the main reasons why he was alone so rarely – he didn't really enjoy it for any extended period of time. He was used to the lively company of the younger residents and students at the hospital and the warmth and affection of his friends and son at home.

As Mark sat there in the warm sunshine with the sweet mountain air blowing gently past his face, he reflected on the many blessings in his life, not the least of which was the companionship of his son. He imagined that Steve had to tolerate a fair amount of ribbing from his colleagues for living with his "old man". But Mark was overwhelmingly grateful that he didn't have to rattle around the large house by himself. Even if he didn't see his son for the rest of the day, sharing a cup of coffee in the morning or a warm drink at night provided a familiar warmth that helped them both through difficult days.

Mark continued to muse until he realized with a start that he had almost fallen asleep. Getting down to business, he caught enough fish for supper and decided to head back to the cabin. Hopefully, by the time he had finished cleaning and preparing the fish, Steve would be back.

As he neared the cabin, he noticed that the door was slightly ajar, and he berated himself for his carelessness, hoping the raccoons hadn't discovered the contents of the kitchen. He remembered a camping trip when Steve was young when some of the rascally pests had broken into their tent and stolen the steaks intended for supper and rifled through their belongings. Mark had not seen another soul since arriving at the lake, and the possibility of human intruders had simply not occurred to him. As he entered the bedroom, that oversight was brought abruptly to an end, as he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.


	2. Chapter 2

As the immediate shock of facing a gun wore off, Mark quickly assessed the situation, which wasn't as grave as he had at first assumed. The hand holding the gun was shaking, and Mark surmised it was the first time its owner had held a weapon. The boy seemed to be in his early teens and more scared by Mark's sudden appearance than the doctor was of him. Taking all this in at a glance, Mark hardly hesitated as his agile mind devised a plan and proceeded to put it into operation. He peered myopically at the boy.

"Well, hello, sonny. I wasn't expecting any company today. Come in, make yourself comfortable; I'll get us a bite to eat." He turned and shuffled out of the room, exaggerating his age and making himself seem as harmless as possible. He began rummaging around in the kitchen, keeping up a rambling monologue. Part of him was amused that his senile and decrepit act, which he had used to entertain his children for many years, should come in so useful.

The boy stared after him, confused. He had expected a very different response, both to the break-in and the weapon. He didn't even think the old man had seen the gun, and he pocketed it, relieved that he hadn't had to use it. He followed the old man out into the kitchen and stood awkwardly near the doorway, unsure of his next move. He'd achieved his objective, and instinct told him to run, to get out while the going was good. No one would try and stop him. However, he was undeniably hungry, and he found himself reluctant to leave what seemed to be a safe haven. If he carried through with his plan, his life would be changed forever. For now, the soup and sandwich being prepared for him were a welcome opportunity to postpone taking actions that would prove irrevocable.

Mark stole the occasional surreptitious glance in the boy's direction as he worked, relieved that the gun was no longer in sight. While seemingly engrossed in his task, he was appraising the boy and any potential threat he might still offer. The boy would have been hard to pick out in a crowd. He was nondescript in appearance, wearing typical teenage clothes, but there was something dejected in his demeanor, something more than just normal adolescent attitude. There was a sense of loss in his eyes that spoke of real tragedy, and Mark found himself hoping he could help. He couldn't believe the boy had any intention of harming him.

"We're ready to eat, sonny," he announced. "Let's eat outside in the sunshine."

With some hesitation, the boy picked up his own plate and drink and followed Mark outside. They sat down at the picnic table, and the boy stared longingly at his food.

"My name's Mark; tuck in, you look hungry. Good food, fresh air, that's the ticket. What's your name?"

Barely waiting for the soft, hesitant response of "Skylar", Mark continued a soft patter of words, innocuous in content, designed to put the boy at ease. Although Mark noticed the teen slowly relaxing, he missed the significance of the stealthy glances at the surrounding shrubbery, as if the boy expected to see something or someone hiding there.

Bobby Phillips had not come to the cabin alone. His friend Nick had come to act as a watchdog as he broke into the building. A lousy job he had done of it too, Bobby mused as he half listened to the old man continue to prattle on. It didn't look as if he'd stuck around after they had been surprised in the act. His thoughts swung back to the reason for his first attempt at breaking and entering, and unknowingly his expression mirrored his depressing thoughts. He was jolted out of his reverie by a concerned hand on his knee and the question, "Are you alright?"

He looked up in surprise at Mark and was caught by the gentleness in that gaze. That was a quality very much missing from his life since his grandfather died two years ago. This man reminded him of his grandfather, with his white hair and distinguished appearance, combined with a patient manner.

"You look as though you've lost your best friend," Mark told him. His concern and obvious interest invited the boy's confidence, and Bobby found himself suddenly eager to unburden himself to a sympathetic audience.

"My brother." He paused and gulped, the grief still too fresh to talk easily. Mark waited, not rushing him, afraid he might withdraw into silence again if he pushed; but the dam of pent-up emotions was crumbling, and a torrent of anger and sorrow spilled out.

"He died last week. They said it was an overdose, but it wasn't, I know it wasn't. He never really did drugs; I mean he experimented with some stuff when he was younger, but he promised me he'd stop and he did. He hadn't touched anything for months. They killed him. He was all I had left and they killed him." Bobby stood up and started to pace, too agitated to sit still.

"Skylar?" Mark tried to interrupt, but the boy was too absorbed in his narrative to respond to the alias he had given, and he continued to talk disjointedly until his brief burst of energy ran out and he sat down abruptly, and dispiritedly buried his head in his hands.

"Skylar. Who are 'they'?" This time Mark succeeded in getting the boy's attention. He lifted his head up and stared at the older man with a mixture of alarm and suspicion, aware that he might have said too much. Mark returned his gaze guilelessly, trying to convey support for his situation without too much interest in the particulars of his story. Apparently he struck the right combination, because the boy continued in a lower voice after another quick survey around him.

"There's a group of people around here who're working on this experimental stuff – you know, a new type of drug. It's worth a ton of money, and they recruited a couple of the kids nearby as distributors. They call it 'rocket', you know, it gives you a real quick trip to the stars." He shifted his gaze away from Mark, obviously uncomfortable about revealing any more.

"How did you get involved with them?" Mark asked gently.

"My brother got me in." Billy shrugged. "It seemed like an easy way to make some extra money. There's not a lot of opportunities around here. But it didn't take long for me to decide I wanted out. These guys aren't just playing, they're vicious."

"Is that where you got the gun?"

"No," Bobby looked surprised at the question. "I found it here, in the bedside drawer. Everyone knows that Doc Harley loves to hunt. We thought we'd find a hunting rifle here, some kind of weapon at least."

Mark tried not to show any reaction to that. It put a whole different perspective on things. He had imagined that the teen had brought the gun to commit the robbery, not vice versa. It had never occurred to him to check to see if his friend had left any weapons lying around the cabin. He was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that Steve had not been with him earlier. His more threatening presence could have pushed the boy into ill-considered action, and the thought of the ensuing tragedy left Mark chilled. Although he wasn't expecting Steve back any time soon, it would be a good idea to retrieve the gun before he arrived. He knew he was pushing his developing relationship with the boy, but he had to ask:

"Why do you need a gun?"

Bobby looked at him closely and, for the first time, realized that this was not an old man on the edge of senility. However, the compassion and kindness in his eyes continued unabated, and it didn't occur to him to question this apparent transformation.

He raised his head with a touch of defiance. "They killed my brother, and I'm going to kill them, or at least the guy responsible. The police won't touch them; they say it was his own fault, but I'm not going to let them get away with it. Ni... a guy who was my brother's best friend and works for the gang told me exactly what happened. They didn't give him a chance. My friend told me this was the only way."

Mark pondered wryly on the seemingly altruistic actions of this helpful friend, but refrained from sharing his suspicions about the ulterior motives behind his actions in favor of encouraging the increasingly agitated boy to relinquish the weapon. He didn't believe the teen was acting out of his own conviction, but had been pushed towards this goal while vulnerable in his grief.

"And what then?" he asked softly. "You'll either get yourself killed or go to jail for the rest of your life. Is that what your brother would want? I know it sounds cliched, something older people always say, but violence isn't the answer. There has to be some other way to get justice for your brother." He half expected the boy to become aggressive and start brandishing the weapon again, but there was no overt reaction to his words, which encouraged him to continue.

"Just give me the gun. I understand why you took it. You must have loved your brother very much, but this isn't the way. I have friends in the police department; maybe I can get them to reopen the investigation into your brother's death. I won't mention anything that's happened here. Please, just give me the gun."

He held out his hand, and slowly Bobby reached into his pocket and withdrew the gun. With a mixture of reluctance and relief, he placed it in Mark's hand, and as his overwrought emotions got the better of him, he placed his head back in his arms and sobbed out his loss and the release of tension. Mark placed the gun in the inside pocket of his jacket, not wanting to leave it accessible in the unlikely event the boy should change his mind. He patted the teen's shoulder comfortingly, then picked up his soup bowl and went inside the cabin, ostensibly to fill the lemonade pitcher, but really to give him some time to recover his composure.

Bobby's tears were abruptly interrupted by a rough hand on his shoulder, brutally wrenching him around. He looked up in shock at his tormentor. Nick's face was distorted with rage as he hissed, "What the hell do you think you're doing, telling him all that, and why did you give him the gun back, you idiot? How're you going to kill Caymen without it?"

Dazed from the interruption of his emotional catharsis, Bobby just stared at him, not attempting to defend himself. He was only moved to expostulate when Nick stepped away from him and, after a quick glance at the cabin, deposited the contents of a small white envelope in Mark's drink.

"Hey, don't do that," he protested as the white powder swirled into oblivion as it mixed with the lemonade in the glass.

"Shut up. We need that gun back, and this way he'll be in no condition to go to the police to try to stop us. You heard him, he has connections with the cops. If you warn him, you'll regret it." Nick's last threat was uttered as he disappeared back in to the bushes, leaving Bobby dazed and torn with uncertainty. He was aware that a dose that large could kill the older man.

He didn't have long to wait before Mark reemerged from the cabin carrying some more lemonade with which he refilled Bobby's cup and then, as Bobby watched in an agony of indecision, Mark started to drink from his own.


	3. Chapter 3

As Mark maintained a flow of reassuring chatter, trying to make sure that the boy had had enough time to get himself composed, Bobby watched him guiltily, desperately trying to think of some way to stop him that would not bring Nick's wrath down on his head. In the end, his expression was sufficient to alert Mark that something was amiss. As Mark saw his stricken face, he put down his half-empty glass on the table.

"What is it?" he asked in concern. He was moving towards Bobby when a wave of dizziness overtook him, and he swayed unsteadily. Bobby jumped up and guided him to a chair.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, but Mark wasn't listening to his abject apology. He felt very strange; time seemed to be slowing down, and the world was suddenly looking very different. Somehow it all seemed so much less serious than it had a few minutes ago. Little details that he had never bothered to notice before suddenly seemed much more noteworthy. He stared at his hands in apparent fascination. Experimentally, he poked at his left hand and seemed to find the results highly amusing. Bobby sighed, feeling he'd just lost his only ally and knowing he only had himself to blame. He moved protectively in front of Mark as Nick approached.

"Come on, grab the gun and let's get out of here."

"Gun...yes I have a gun," Mark supplied helpfully, pulling it out and waving it in the direction of the two boys who backed off in alarm. "It's a good gun. Doesn't it look nice?"

"Come on," Bobby pulled at Nick. "Just leave him alone. We'll do this some other way. It's not worth it."

Nick watched Mark for a few moments, seeing his brandishing of the weapon as a threat instead of the playful exploration it was. He swore viciously, but allowed himself to be pushed in the direction of the path that led to their vehicle. As he followed, Bobby, with a swipe of his arm, backhanded Mark's glass containing the rest of the drugged lemonade into the bushes, determined to prevent the older man from finishing the potentially lethal dose. With one last troubled look at Mark, he left.

Mark didn't notice their departure, as he was busily engaged in twirling the gun round his finger and attempting to juggle it into the air and catch it behind his back. He meandered slowly up the hill along the path, vaguely remembering that he had to catch some fish for supper.

As he reached the clearing at the top of the hill, he tried again to catch the gun, but his coordination was completely disrupted, and it fell away from his hand. As it hit the ground, the gun discharged loudly, the shot narrowly missing Mark, who stared at it for a while, waiting for a repetition of this interesting phenomenon. When it failed to perform, he picked it up, shook it lightly, and examined it with drunken interest.

 

Steve drove back toward Clear Valley, feeling fully relaxed now that his part in the trial was over. Things had gone more smoothly than he had expected, and the DA had been satisfied both with Steve's performance on the stand and the odds of getting a conviction. So Steve headed back to the cabin with a serene anticipation of enjoying these last few days with his father untainted by any remaining responsibilities.

As he pulled his truck up behind the cabin, Steve realized that he was back somewhat earlier than he had expected and grinned to himself as he anticipated his father's pleased welcome. Retrieving his overnight bag from the back of the truck, he approached the door to the cabin, noting that the main door was open, with only the screen door in place, allowing the cool breezes to enter. Good, he thought, his father must be inside. He walked cheerfully through the door, calling out in the time-honored manner of his long-ago school days, "Hi, Dad – I'm home!"

Somewhat surprised at not getting a response, Steve headed for the bedroom to deposit his bag and see if his dad had succumbed to the restful atmosphere enough to take a nap. Not finding anyone in the bedroom either, he moved back into the living area, casting a glance around for any evidence of what his father might have been doing. He certainly wouldn't have gone far, Steve knew, since he had left the door open. As he looked around, it occurred to him that things seemed somewhat messier than usual. A couple of the desk drawers weren't closed all the way, and there were things scattered around in a manner indicating that someone had been searching for something. Since his father, despite his pack rat tendencies, was essentially a very neat person, Steve found this rather odd. He went out to the patio behind the cabin, and raised an eyebrow at the sight of what appeared to be the remains of a half-eaten lunch. A closer look revealed that, while there was only one bowl and one glass, there were two paper plates, one of which still contained part of a sandwich. Apparently his father had had company. But where were they now and why had they abandoned their lunch?

As he was contemplating this puzzle, the empty plate was blown off the table by a sudden gust of wind. Just as he started to chase it, Steve was startled by the sound of a gunshot, not far away. Alarmed, he abandoned the picnic table and headed in the direction of the shot, automatically pulling his own weapon. He knew the sound of a handgun when he heard it, and since his father was not into taking potshots at the local wildlife, nor likely to encourage such an activity on the part of his unknown guest, his instinctive reaction was to assume this was trouble. Cautiously, he moved toward the woods from which the shot had sounded. As he quietly drew closer, he could hear the sound of someone moving around ahead of him and the occasional murmur of a voice. As he approached the small clearing above the lake from which these sounds were emanating, he realized that the voice was his father's, and, although there was definitely something odd about it, it didn't sound like Mark was in trouble. Nevertheless, he peered warily into the clearing, wanting to see what was going on before he stepped out into the open.

As Steve peered through the bushes, he froze in shock at the unimaginable sight of his father holding a gun pointed at his own face. For one totally horrified second, his heart stopped, as his stunned brain struggled to take in the image of his father apparently about to commit suicide; then he lunged desperately into the clearing.

"Dad!" He skidded to a halt, his heart pounding in his chest, as Mark looked up, but didn't lower the gun. "Dad, what…" He got no further before he realized that Mark's expression wasn't that of a man about to kill himself. Instead, his father looked at him with an expression of pleasant vagueness, as he seemed to be trying to focus on Steve.

"Steve?" The voice matched the expression – pleasant, spacey, slightly slurred. With a new sense of shock, Steve realized that his father appeared to be extremely drunk – an almost equally improbable scenario from a man who rarely indulged in more than an occasional beer or glass of wine. "You know, these are very weird things," he heard his father say as he looked back at the gun he was still holding, turning it over and over, checking it out from all angles. Steve's stomach lurched as Mark ended up peering directly down the barrel of the gun as if trying to see what was inside.

Steve swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice and movements calm. Whatever was wrong with his father, he'd find out later. Right now he had to get that gun away from him before he hurt himself. He could see that the safety was disengaged, and all it would take was an incautious movement on Mark's part, and the gun could go off. And at literally point blank range, it would blow a good-sized hole in his father's head.

"Dad… why don't you put the gun down," he suggested, stepping very slowly toward his father.

Mark looked back at him. "You have one too," he pointed out with an air of perfect reasonableness. "I want to see how mine works."

Steve glanced down at the gun he had forgotten he was still holding. He carefully reholstered it, all the time keeping his eyes glued to his father's face and moving steadily closer to him. "I'm putting mine away, Dad," he said. "How about you do the same."

Mark suddenly turned mildly belligerent, refusing to give up the gun, and backing away from his son. Steve halted his approach, conscious of the sudden drop-off down to the lake that was barely a few feet behind his father, not wanting Mark to inadvertently step over the edge. By now he had realized, from the dilated eyes, erratic behavior, and disconnection from reality, that his father was most likely under the influence of some sort of drug. Finding out how and why that had happened could wait; getting that gun out of his hands before he shot himself couldn't. He took a deep breath, and tried again.

"Dad, please – give me the gun before you get hurt," he urged, starting to slowly edge closer again.

"It won't hurt me," Mark protested. "I'm just looking at it." He started to raise it up to eye level again, to illustrate his point, causing Steve to exclaim in alarm, "No! Don't do that!" Mark looked at him as if the yelling had hurt his feelings, and continued to protest the safety of what he was doing. Steve decided to try another tactic.

"Dad, please, for me, okay?" he asked pleadingly. "I just want you to give it to me – please." He saw Mark hesitate, and persisted, continuing to play on his father's usual willingness to do anything for his son. "Come on Dad, I know you're just checking it out, but I really need you to give it to me … for me, okay?" He watched with bated breath, as his father glanced again at the gun in his hand and then lowered it reluctantly.

"Well… if it means that much to you …" Mark said, slowly extending his arm toward Steve.

"It does," Steve avowed fervently, never taking his eyes off his father as he moved swiftly to grab the gun, not wanting to give Mark a chance to change his mind. Unfortunately, with his attention focussed exclusively on the gun and the hand that held it, he failed to notice a section of raised tree roots in front of him; and in his hurry, he tripped over them, falling directly into his father, who was in no condition to maintain his own balance, let alone support Steve. The two men toppled heavily to the ground, and the gun went off, the sharpness of the report muffled by the body that covered it.


	4. Chapter 4

As the two men hit the ground, Steve felt a searing pain explode through his abdomen, as the impact caused the gun to fire. NO! his mind screamed, as he landed helplessly on top of his father, a blazing anger at his own carelessness and the resulting disaster bursting through his brain as darkness overtook him.

Mark was temporarily stunned as Steve's weight bore him forcefully to the ground. He was only out a brief moment, however; and he rolled out from under his son's body, still dazed and spaced out from the drug. Seeing Steve lying motionless on the ground, he tried to shake him awake, his drug-fogged mind failing to comprehend the true nature of the situation until he rolled Steve on his back and saw the blood staining his shirt. Blood. Vaguely, Mark was aware that blood soaking through his son's shirt was cause for alarm, but he couldn't think clearly enough to determine what he should do. But the desire to do something to help his son was strong enough to partially penetrate the mental haze in which he was operating. Help. That was it. He would go get help. Unsteadily patting his son and promising to return shortly, Mark turned away with the intention of finding help. Unfortunately, his mind and gait equally unsteady from the effects of the drug, his erratic wanderings brought him too close to the edge of the drop-off, and he tumbled helplessly down the steep slope, fetching up against a bush at the edge of the lake, where he lay unconscious.

Steve returned to consciousness, aware of a fiery pain in his abdomen and the brightness of the sunlight against his eyes. He squinted against the light and turned his head to take in his surroundings. Momentarily confused at the sight of the woods around him, the sudden return of memory brought an instant sharpening of focus and stab of alarm. He looked around for his father, the alarm intensifying at his failure to see him. He rolled painfully onto his side, automatically pressing his hand hard against the bullet wound, as he tried to get a better view of the surrounding area.

"Dad?" he called urgently, anxiety sharpening the weakness of his voice. There was no response, and still no sign of Mark. Fear sliced through him, as painful as the burning of the bullet wound. If his father had wandered off and left him here, he must still be in a dangerously confused state of mind. Steve thought of the gun and the possibility of his father shooting himself with it, of the dangerous proximity of the drop-off to the lake. The visions of his father lying bleeding somewhere in the woods or drowning in the lake, too drugged to save himself, impelled him to his knees, struggling to get to his feet to search for him. He managed to drag himself only a pace or two, however, before collapsing. "Dad." It was a groan of desperation and despair, as he realized that he was too weak to get anywhere on his own; he was too badly wounded and had already lost too much blood. He forced his rapidly clouding brain to think, refusing to accept that there was nothing he could do to help either his father or himself. Of course, he could call for help. Cursing his own mental slowness, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the operator.

"I need help," he gasped painfully as he heard the operator respond. "I've been shot…" He heard the woman on the other end of the line asking about his location, and struggled to hold onto consciousness long enough to provide the information. He managed to give the address of the cabin and indicate that he was in the woods behind it, before he succumbed to the weakness that was rapidly overwhelming him. As he slipped again into unconsciousness, his last sensation was anguish at his failure to resolve the situation without harm. I'm sorry, Dad, he thought, desperately hoping his father would be all right; I'm so sorry… Then the blackness overcame him once more.


	5. Chapter 5

It was approaching dusk when Mark woke up, stiff and sore, to find himself lying in a partially hidden ravine beside the lake at the base of the drop-off. His mind was fuzzy, his mouth was dry, and he ached all over. Confused, he raised himself carefully to a sitting position, fighting the nausea that washed over him as he did so. He gazed around at his surroundings, trying to orient himself, his confusion growing as he tried to figure out how he had come to be lying in the scrub beside the lake. He concentrated on analyzing his physical symptoms, and his confusion increased even more. Headache, dizziness, nausea, general fuzziness of mind – and mouth, sensitivity to light, shakiness … if he didn't know better, he'd figure he was suffering from either a severe hangover or a case of the flu. But he never drank to excess, and he didn't remember being sick. He glanced down at himself, checking for signs of injury, and was startled to see blood on his hand and staining his jacket. A quick check confirmed the fact that he was not bleeding – although he did seem to be badly bruised in various areas. So whose blood was it? And what had happened to whoever it was?

Struggling to clear the mists that still clung to his brain, Mark stumbled to the edge of the lake and cupped his hands to draw water to splash his face. The shock of the icy water helped him to focus, and he concentrated on trying to remember what had happened to him. As he stared at the blood that had generously splattered his jacket, he felt a cold dread invade him. Something was very wrong … something to do with a gun… He suddenly remembered entering the cabin to find himself facing a gun. The memory of his confrontation with Skylar flooded back into his mind. He remembered convincing Skylar to give him the gun, and their subsequent conversation. But then his memory seemed to grow hazy in the extreme. Surely Skylar had left? As Mark struggled to think, he found he could only bring up flashes of images. Something about wandering in the woods, but also something more about the gun… Had he really been wandering around the woods with a gun in his hand? Had Skylar been with him? He had a feeling there had been somebody in the woods with him… As he focussed on identifying the shadowy figure in his mind, he had a sudden clear vision of his son. Steve. Steve had been there, confronting him, and he had been holding the gun. Terror suddenly gripped him, clenching a tight fist around his heart, burning in his stomach, as Mark realized that his last relatively clear image was of himself holding a gun, facing his son – and now he was here spattered with blood and Steve was nowhere to be seen.

In an agony of desperate fear, Mark staggered to his feet, the only coherent thought left in his mind the urgent need to find his son. He tried to scramble back up the slope down which he had tumbled, but it was too steep. Frantically, he started to skirt around the base of the drop-off, heading away from the cabin in the direction that seemed to offer the closest point that looked climbable.

In the noise made by his own hasty progress, Mark didn't even notice the sound of someone approaching until a large man in a sheriff's uniform stepped out of some bushes in front of him.

"Hold it," the sheriff ordered sharply, pointing a gun at him.

Mark halted momentarily in surprise, but almost immediately moved to approach the officer, hoping to enlist his help in finding Steve. He was brought up short by the sound of the sheriff disengaging the safety on his gun and threatening harshly, "I said hold it right there." Mark stopped, perforce, not understanding why this was happening, but too focussed on his need to find Steve to give it much thought.

"Please," he said, a shade of desperation creeping into his voice, "I need to find my son… he may be hurt…"

"Are you Mark Sloan?" asked the sheriff, continuing to keep the gun trained on him.

"Yes," replied Mark, even more confused. "I'm looking for my son Steve…"

"From the looks of the blood on your clothes," said the sheriff dryly, "I'd say it's all too obvious that you found him." Mark glanced involuntarily down at the blood stains on his jacket, but his head jerked back up as the sheriff continued. "Mark Sloan, I'm arresting you for the attempted murder of your son…"

The world seemed to swim in front of him, as Mark reeled at this shock. Murder? Thoughts and fears crowded into his already dazed brain too fast to be processed. He never even realized that the sheriff was still talking, as a horrible image of his son lying bloody and lifeless at his feet popped into his mind, and the fatal word 'murder' echoed relentlessly in his ears. It wasn't until he felt handcuffs being snapped over his wrists that he managed to pull himself together enough to try to think. Forcing his brain to focus on what the sheriff had said, he seized on one word: 'attempted'. Surely he had said 'attempted' murder…

"Is he alive?" he managed to croak, his eyes desperately searching the sheriff's impassive face for information. "How badly is he hurt?"

The sheriff cast him a look of contempt. "He wasn't quite dead when we brought him in," he replied coldly, "but he probably won't last the night."

The anguish that washed over Mark at this blunt announcement was almost more than he could bear. He had to get to his son – had to help him somehow…

"Please, I have to see him," he pleaded. "I have to help him…"

"You've done enough already," was the hard reply, as the sheriff steered him none-too-gently toward a 4-wheel drive vehicle with a county sheriff's insignia that had been parked a short ways down a rough path that circled the lake.

The ride to the sheriff's office passed in a nightmarish blur for Mark. He tried to concentrate on making sense of the flashes of memory and images that rose in his mind. The only possible explanation for all this that he could come up with was that he must have been drugged. Somehow, Skylar must have drugged him; things were pretty clear up until sitting down with him at the table. And in his drugged state, somehow, through some horrific twist of fate, Steve had come upon him while he was holding the gun he had taken from Skylar, and he had shot his son. The agony of that realization was intense enough to preclude any further rational thought. Between the after-effects of the drug and the emotional anguish of knowing that he was responsible for possibly fatally injuring his son, he endured the rest of the trip with his mind floundering in a morass of confusion, anxiety and guilt.

The sense of nightmare continued as Mark was hustled into the sheriff's office, stripped of his blood-spattered jacket, which would be used as evidence, tested for traces of cordite on his hands from firing the gun, and subjected to a cursory but hostile questioning by the sheriff, who was obviously skeptical of Mark's claims to have been drugged by some errant teen.

"You don't deny that you shot your son?" the lawman asked in a tone that clearly indicated his disinterest in anything beyond that basic fact.

"No." Mark could barely get the word out through the overpowering sense of guilt and despair that were choking him. The only thing that was keeping him from simply succumbing to the guilt and accepting whatever consequences they could throw at him was the burning need to be at his son's side – to see for himself that he was receiving the best possible care, to be there for him and with him, in case the worst happened, to tell him how desperately sorry he was. Between the confusion in his mind, the sickness and aches of his body, and the overwhelming anguish of his anxiety and grief for his son, any type of logical thought seemed to be completely beyond him. He tried to tell the sheriff about Skylar and his suspicion that the boy had drugged him, but the officer clearly didn't believe him. Apparently, there was no boy of that age with that name in Clear Valley, and in his current state of confusion, Mark stumbled over his tale, failing to present any kind of coherent defense. In the end, he found himself still under arrest, being led off to a cell, the only concession the sheriff was willing to make being an agreement to call a nurse or med tech to draw his blood for a drug test.

Before being locked in the cell, however, Mark was given the standard opportunity to place one call. By now it was late in the evening, and Mark knew that he probably didn't stand much chance of getting hold of his lawyer. Nor was his legal plight his main concern at the moment – what he wanted most desperately was to be sure that everything possible was being done for his son, to know that there was someone with Steve who would stay with him, look out for him, see that he wasn't left alone. Praying that he would get an answer, he dialed Jesse's cell phone.


	6. Chapter 6

Jesse drove up to Clear Valley the next morning, still trying to make sense of the phone call the night before. He had just gotten into his apartment after a long, grueling shift in the ER, when he had received the call from Mark. At first he hadn't even recognized his friend's voice – never had he heard Mark in such a state of agitation and incoherence. He had listened in alarm and confusion as Mark told him that Steve had been shot and pleaded with him to go to Clear Valley Community Hospital to check on his condition and see that everything was being done. Putting aside, in deference to his friend's obviously overwrought state, the multitude of questions about what had happened, Jesse had assured Mark that he would be there as soon as he could. However, there was one question he had to ask, and it was the response to that which had totally stunned him.

"But, Mark, where are you?" Jesse had asked, bewildered, at a loss to understand what could be preventing him from being at Steve's side himself. There was a brief pause before he heard his friend reply in a voice that held a distinctly discernable note of anguish, "In jail." And before Jesse could recover from that shock enough to question further, Mark had hung up.

Once he had pulled himself together, Jesse had immediately looked up the number for Clear Valley Community Hospital and called to see what he could find out about Steve's condition. All they would tell him over the phone, however, was that his friend was in critical condition. He had then spent the rest of the evening arranging for people to cover his shifts for the next several days and looking up directions to Clear Valley. Recognizing that driving through the night on back roads he didn't know after an exhausting 16-hour shift was more likely to result in him getting lost or in an accident than to get him there quickly, he had reluctantly decided to catch a few hours sleep before heading out. It couldn't be said that he had slept particularly well, but his exhaustion ensured that he did get some rest before throwing a hastily packed suitcase in his car and departing shortly before dawn.

Arriving at the hospital, Jesse went up to the ICU nurse's station. He had taken the precaution of bringing Steve's medical records with him, both to provide the doctors currently treating his friend with his medical history and to establish his own bona fides as Steve's 'regular doctor' – something he knew might be necessary in order to be involved in the medical decisions that were made on his friend's behalf. He was fortunate enough to have arrived while the surgeon who had operated on Steve was still making his rounds, so he had only a short time to wait before meeting him.

Dr. Karl Erickson, to Jesse's relief, proved to be both a competent surgeon and a reasonable man, despite a 'no-nonsense' demeanor. After some initial hesitation due to what Dr. Erickson described as the 'sensitive police side' to the case, the surgeon agreed to allow Jesse to be included in Steve's treatment and decisions. Jesse was dismayed to discover that Steve had been shot once in the abdomen at point-blank range, rupturing his appendix. He had lost a great deal of blood before arriving at the hospital, but the ER doctors had managed to keep him alive long enough to get him into surgery and repair the damage. The bigger problem, however, was that the leakage from the ruptured appendix had resulted in a severe case of peritonitis, and Steve was currently in critical condition, with the doctors feeling distinctly pessimistic about his chances for survival. Jesse reviewed Steve's chart and treatment with Dr. Erickson, and was relieved to find that the local doctor was willing to consider alternative possibilities for treatment. What Jesse really wished, however, was that Mark was here to discuss the case with him. Setting aside the fact that the patient in question was Mark's son, this was just the sort of medical problem with which he most appreciated the older doctor's experience and medical acumen. Unthinkingly, he expressed this sentiment aloud, and was taken aback by the response he got.

"I hardly think he'd be allowed to have a hand in the treatment," Erickson said dryly.

"Well, I know a doctor doesn't usually treat his own family," Jesse replied, "but he's one of the best…" He was interrupted by the other surgeon.

"That's not what I meant. Considering he's the person who shot your friend in the first place, I doubt that he'd …"

"What?!" Jesse interrupted him incredulously. "What are you talking about? Mark didn't shoot Steve!"

Dr. Erickson raised an eyebrow in surprise. "I thought you knew," he said. "According to Sheriff Consten, Detective Sloan was shot by his father."

"That's impossible," Jesse declared flatly. "There's no way Mark would ever hurt Steve."

"The sheriff sounded very sure about it," Erickson replied.

"Well the sheriff is very wrong," Jesse retorted. "I've known Mark and Steve for years – they have the closest father/son relationship I've ever seen. I don't know what kind of crazy idea your sheriff thinks he's got, but you can take it from me that Mark isn't responsible for this. Mark's one of the kindest, most compassionate people on earth – he'd never hurt anyone, least of all Steve!"

The surgeon refrained from arguing the point, merely bringing Jesse to Steve's room and leaving him there to check on his friend. He stood beside Steve's bed, staring down at his unconscious form, automatically checking the drips and monitors attached to him, assessing their information, trying to pull himself together enough to rationally consider the best course of action. The rapid accumulation of shocks and disasters in the past 12 or so hours was leaving him feeling off-balance and overwhelmed. Mark's sketchy information about Steve being shot and himself imprisoned had been bad enough. Now Jesse was realizing that the situation was even worse than he had thought. Not only was Steve's condition extremely precarious, but Mark was apparently under arrest as the suspected shooter. No wonder he had sounded so distraught when he called; Jesse didn't even want to imagine what this must be doing to his friend and mentor.

Drawing upon the reserves of professionalism and detachment that he had used in the past when Steve had been brought in to the hospital in critical condition, Jesse focussed on making sure he had a complete picture of Steve's condition. He perused the chart hanging on the bed, combining its more recent data with the information he had gained from reviewing the complete file with Dr. Erickson. Obviously, the current treatment was inadequate to combat the infection that was raging through Steve's system. Jesse had seen enough cases of peritonitis in Community General to know that the infection was usually fatal if not controlled very quickly. He decided that his best bet was to check with the Infectious Disease specialist at CG to see what treatments they had found most efficacious. He remained at Steve's side for a few moments longer, hating to leave him alone, knowing that he had promised Mark that he would stay with him if he could. But he had also promised to see that Steve got the best possible care, as well as to inform Mark of his status. He stared down at the motionless man in the bed, still trying to grapple with all this. God, Steve, what the hell happened? he wondered silently. Aloud, he spoke to his friend, telling him that he was here, that he'd be back; urging him to hang on. Then, drawing a deep breath, he left to start fulfilling those last two parts of his promise.


	7. Chapter 7

It was almost two hours later that Jesse entered the sheriff's office, having succeeded in arranging a conference call between Dr. Caldwell, the head of the Infectious Disease department at Community General, Dr. Erickson, and himself. Together they had agreed on a new course of treatment that they hoped would succeed in controlling the peritonitis. Now he had to somehow come up with a way to tell Mark about Steve, hopefully without letting him know just how close to death his son was. Not that Jesse had any very real expectation of being able to accomplish that; Mark was too good a doctor not to understand the implications of everything Jesse said – or even what he didn't say. Reflecting grimly that there was no way this was going to be anything other than intensely difficult, Jesse walked up to the man sitting at the desk.

"Sheriff Consten?" Jesse asked as the man looked up at him.

"That's me," replied the officer laconically.

"I'm Dr. Jesse Travis. I understand you've arrested Mark Sloan in connection with the shooting of his son Steve."

The sheriff's appraising gaze swept over the young doctor, his expression remaining impassive. "That's right," he confirmed. "What's your interest in the matter?"

"I'm Lt. Sloan's treating physician and a friend of both the Sloans," Jesse said. "I'd appreciate it if you would tell me what evidence you have that makes you think Mark could have had anything to do with the shooting."

"It's not a question of 'thinking' he was responsible, son," drawled the sheriff. "We have proof."

"What proof?" asked Jesse skeptically.

"We have the gun with his fingerprints on it, traces of cordite on his hands proving he fired the gun, and his son's blood on his clothes." There was a gleam of satisfaction in the sheriff's eyes as he saw Jesse looking somewhat taken aback by the cumulative weight of all this. "And then, of course, there's the fact that he confessed."

Jesse was beginning to feel like he'd wandered into one of the more nightmarish episodes of the Twilight Zone. None of this was possible – it violated all the certainties of life. Mark could never have shot anyone, especially not Steve. He struggled against the feeling of unreality, plopping himself dazedly in the chair beside the sheriff's desk.

"Look, this just doesn't make any sense," he declared. "What exactly happened?"

"Lt. Sloan placed an emergency call yesterday afternoon reporting that he'd been shot. The ambulance crew found him unconscious in the woods behind Doc Harley's cabin, where he and his father had apparently been staying. There was a gun belonging to Doc Harley lying in the leaves beside him. We ran the prints on the gun and found that they belonged to a Dr. Mark Sloan. We put out a search and found Dr. Sloan, splattered with blood, making his way around the lake away from town. We ran the lab tests on the blood stains and checked him for traces of cordite and placed him under arrest." The sheriff was obviously very satisfied with the speed and efficiency with which he had dealt with this case.

"What did Mark say?" Jesse asked, feeling more confused by the minute.

"He didn't deny it," the sheriff replied with a trace of contempt. "He didn't say much of anything, although he did eventually claim he was drugged."

Jesse seized on that explanation. "Well, didn't you take him to the hospital to be checked out?"

"There was no need," the sheriff replied calmly. "He wasn't hurt – barring a few bruises; he didn't need a hospital. We had a nurse come up and draw his blood to be analyzed. The results came back this morning; there were no traces of any drugs."

"Did you do a urinalysis?" Jesse asked.

A look of annoyance crossed the sheriff's face. "Look, son," he said, "we don't need a urinalysis. Even if your Dr. Sloan was high at the time, that doesn't offset the fact that he shot his son. In fact, we don't think too highly of doctors who get a little too familiar with their own pharmacies."

"Mark Sloan does not take drugs," Jesse asserted indignantly. "If he says he was drugged, then someone slipped them to him without his knowledge. Have you done anything to check out his story?"

"We went back to the cabin," Consten replied. "We looked around. We didn't find any traces of drugs in anything."

Jesse could tell that the sheriff had made up his mind that Mark was guilty and saw no need to pursue the case further. And since Steve was incapable of telling his friend what had really happened, Jesse wasn't going to be able to help find out the truth until he talked to Mark.

"I want to talk to Mark," he demanded. He tried to control his irritation as the sheriff pondered his request, obviously considering whether or not he should deny it.

"Well, I guess that can't do no harm," he eventually conceded, somewhat reluctantly. He heaved himself out of his chair, and headed toward a door at the back of the office. "Come on, I'll take you back to the cells."

Having crossed the first hurdle, Jesse felt considerable trepidation as he followed the sheriff to the cells in the back of the building. Now he had to face the moment of telling his friend just how badly injured his son was. And if Mark really had shot Steve in some drug-crazed high, he was bound to be even more devastated than Jesse had originally anticipated. He drew a deep breath as he approached the cells and saw a white-haired figure sitting hunched on the bunk-like bed in one of them.

"Hey, Doc," he heard Consten call with spurious cheerfulness as he opened the door, "you got a visitor." The sheriff then turned to face Jesse. "You got 10 minutes," he stated coldly and left, locking the door behind him.

Jesse barely noticed the lawman's departure, his eyes glued to the haggard face that was raised to meet his. He took in at a glance the disheveled, soiled clothes that Mark had obviously been wearing since the previous day, the deep circles under the eyes in a gray, lined face; Mark looked like hell. As the older man looked up and recognized him, he lurched quickly to his feet, almost stumbling in his haste to approach his friend.

"Jesse." His voice was hoarse and urgent. "Have you seen Steve? Is he alive? How bad is it?" Those anguished eyes searched the younger doctor's face, desperately attempting to read some sign of how bad the news was.

Jesse pulled himself together and hastened to offer what limited reassurance he could.

"He's alive, Mark," he responded, knowing that that was the most important and comforting fact he could provide. Mark drew a cautiously relieved breath, but his eyes remained riveted to Jesse's face, warily waiting for the details, picking up from Jesse's failure to continue immediately the fact that the remaining information was undoubtedly more negative. Jesse put a hand on his friend's arm and steered him back to the bunk, gently pressing him back onto it, seating himself beside him.

"Steve's in the ICU, but he's still alive," Jesse continued, trying to ease into the details. He forced himself to meet those pain-filled blue eyes as Mark tensed, preparing to hear the rest.

"How bad is it, Jesse? Please, I have to know everything; they won't tell me anything." The quiet desperation in his tone made Jesse's heart ache in sympathy. Hating the news he had to deliver, he nevertheless realized that it would be kinder to get it all over as quickly as possible; the long period of doubt and uncertainty had probably been a greater torture than even knowing the worst could be.

"He was shot once in the abdomen," Jesse told him, keeping his voice as matter-of-fact as he could, hoping that a detached, medical-report approach would help soften the personal nature of the situation. "The bullet ruptured the appendix, resulting in peritonitis." He saw an anguished spasm, quickly suppressed, cross Mark's face. "He wasn't responding to the antibiotics they had him on, but I've talked with John Caldwell at CG, and we've come up with a different approach that we think should clear it up." He tried to put conviction into his voice, wanting to provide any crumb of comfort and hope that he could. "The surgeon at the hospital here, Dr. Erickson, is a very competent doctor," he assured his friend. "And he's being very cooperative about conferring with John and me."

Mark searched Jesse's face for another moment, then squeezed his eyes shut, trying to maintain some semblance of composure. He understood all the implications that Jesse had been trying to soften. Peritonitis from a ruptured appendix was an extremely life-threatening infection under any circumstances. Steve's condition, he knew, would be further complicated by the gunshot wound and the enormous amount of blood he must have lost – factors that would have left his body severely weakened and much less capable of fighting off the infection. He glanced involuntarily down at himself. His jacket had been taken away as evidence, and his hands had been washed, but he could still see himself liberally stained with his son's blood – the loss of which could well cost Steve his life. It was a moment before Jesse's voice filtered through the wave of anguish that was swamping him, and he realized that his friend had called his name more than once. He opened his eyes again to see Jesse watching him in deep concern.

"He's a strong man, Mark, in excellent physical condition," the younger doctor tried to assure him. "And he's a fighter. He'll get through this." Jesse tried to keep his own doubts hidden, along with his rising fear that it might well be Mark who didn't make it through this. He desperately wanted to get his friend out of here, and to do that he needed to know what had actually occurred.

"What happened, Mark?" Jesse asked gently.

"I've been thinking about that all night, and I'm still not sure," Mark replied, his voice dull and tinged with bewilderment.

"The sheriff said something about you being drugged," Jesse prompted.

Mark's mouth twisted slightly in a brief, bitter half-smile. "I'm sure he said something like I 'claimed' to be drugged," he responded. "He doesn't believe me."

"Well, I believe you," Jesse declared stoutly. "And we'll just have to prove it so we can get you out of here. So tell me what happened."

Mark pulled himself together and focussed on relaying the details that he could remember. He had indeed spent most of the night rehashing everything he could recall of the day's events, desperately searching for an explanation of how this tragedy had come about, and he was now able to relate the facts in an orderly fashion.

"I was coming back to the cabin after fishing," he started. "Steve was in Sacramento testifying at the Tremelan trial, but I was expecting him back by dinner time." Jesse nodded, remembering that Steve's journey to Sacramento had been one of the initiating factors in the Sloans' trip.

"When I got to the cabin, there was a boy there with a gun; he had broken in and found a gun Walter kept in his desk. He was just a kid," Mark continued, his manner returning to something approaching normalcy as he concentrated on the narrative; "he couldn't have been more than 15 or 16." He gave the merest hint of a smile, remembering his first assessment of the boy and the shaking hand that had held the gun. "I think he was more scared than I was."

"What did you do?" Jesse asked curiously.

"I made him lunch," Mark replied. Jesse stared at him, wondering for a moment if the drugs Mark had ingested were still affecting his mind. "I pretended not to notice the gun," Mark explained. "I just walked into the kitchen and pretended that I thought he was just a social visitor. He put the gun in his pocket and followed me in, and we got talking."

Jesse shook his head slightly, reflecting wryly that this was classic Mark, and possibly helped explain the sheriff's disbelief of his story. Who, not knowing Mark, was going to believe that an elderly man, confronted with a unknown armed teenager who had broken into his house, would calmly go about his business and even befriend the kid? He was not at all surprised when Mark got to the point in the story where the kid gave him the gun; of course he would. That was the effect Mark had on people, especially people in trouble. After all, hadn't he been taken hostage at gunpoint Jesse's first year at Community General only to return with the convicted felon who had abducted him as 'a new best friend' as Amanda had put it and eventually prove the man innocent of the murder for which he had been convicted? The momentary lightening of his mood produced by this memory, however, was short-lived, as he abruptly recalled the atypically tragic ending of this particular incident. He listened somberly as Mark related what Skylar had told him about his brother's death, and how he had left the teen alone for a few moments to compose himself.

"I remember coming back and drinking some of my lemonade," Mark continued. "And after that it all gets very confused and hazy."

"You think he drugged your lemonade?"

"I can't think of any other way it could have happened," Mark replied, a hint of bewilderment returning to his voice. "I really didn't think he would do something like that, but I must have been drugged – it's the only explanation for what happened. And no one else was there."

"What did happen after that?" Jesse asked.

"I don't remember much of it," said Mark, his tension increasing again as he faced the worst part of his tale. "I just have a few clear images and a lot of vague flashes. I must have wandered out into the woods with the gun still in my pocket. I remember waving it around… I'm not really sure." He paused, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to draw strength to get through the next part. "And then Steve was there." He stared unseeingly out through bars of the cell, the strain showing clearly on his face. "He must have gotten back early from the trial. Or maybe it was later than I thought; I don't really know. But he was there. And I was holding the gun." Mark faltered then, turning to look at Jesse, his eyes so full of pain that Jesse could scarcely bear to meet them. "I don't remember exactly how it happened… but the gun went off." It was almost a whisper.

Jesse placed what he hoped was a reassuring hand on his friend's arm, but he doubted if Mark even felt it – he was momentarily lost in a sea of grief and horror, his eyes squeezed shut, his head bowed. Jesse wanted so badly to comfort his friend, but he knew there was nothing he could say at that moment that would help. He waited, his hand still gripping his friend's arm. After a moment, Mark raised his head, his face haggard.

"I don't remember what happened after that," he continued, his voice ragged, but rigidly controlled. "I woke up at the base of the drop-off to the lake, feeling like I'd just been through a severe bout of 'flu, bruised all over; my mind was fuzzy and I couldn't figure out what had happened. Then I saw the blood. And I remembered Steve." The face that turned to Jesse's was etched with the pain of that revelation. "I tried to get back up the slope," Mark said, his voice holding a faint echo of the desperation he had felt, "but I couldn't do it. I was trying to find a spot where I could get up, but the sheriff came and arrested me." Having held himself together long enough to get the story out, he fell silent, suddenly totally drained.

"Mark, it wasn't your fault," Jesse tried to assure him. "You weren't trying to hurt Steve. You're a doctor – you know that people under the influence of drugs do things that they aren't even aware of, things they would never do. You weren't responsible."

Mark didn't even look up. "Jesse, I shot my son," he uttered, his voice raw with pain.

Jesse knew there was little he could offer in the way of comfort to ease that anguish, but he tried his best to reassure his friend, both of Mark's own lack of culpability and of Steve's chances for survival. He still hadn't gotten much in the way of response when the sheriff returned, announcing that the visit was over. Jesse rose reluctantly, his imminent departure finally sparking Mark's arousal from his state of non-responsive misery.

"Jesse, please," Mark said urgently, "call my lawyer, Don Freeman. See if he can arrange bail or something." Those blue eyes held more than a tinge of desperation as they met Jesse's. "I have to get out to see Steve. I have to be with him…" The pleading voice trailed off.

"I'll call him, Mark," Jesse promised. "And I'll stay with Steve until we get you out." There was no time for more as the sheriff hustled him out of the cell, locking the door behind him with a clang of finality.

Mark watched Jesse go, clinging to the knowledge that at least there was someone he trusted, someone who cared, who would look out for Steve. It was insufficient comfort, however, to offset the agony he felt. He wanted so desperately to be with his son, to do whatever he could to help him, to help mitigate the consequences of the terrible thing he had done.

Left alone, with nothing else to divert his mind, he found himself reliving yet again the confrontation with Skylar, searching for a way he could have avoided the resulting tragedy. Wracked with guilt and grief, Mark found himself wishing that he had never taken the weapon from the teen. I should have let him shoot me, he thought in despair. The thought that Steve might die, and by his hand, was tearing him apart. His worst nightmare had always been that Steve would be killed in the course of his work as a police officer; but never in the most hideous of those nightmares had he ever considered that he might be the cause of that ultimate catastrophe.

That Steve's death would be the worst thing that could ever happen to him was unquestionable. Mark remembered with vivid clarity the death of his daughter Carol less than a year ago, and knew that not even that horrendous tragedy could match this. Carol was his daughter, and he loved her dearly, and her death had been a devastation and grief from which he would never fully recover. He would have unhesitatingly traded his life for hers; would, indeed, have preferred such an exchange. But she had, many years ago, separated herself by distance and lifestyle from him, coming home only occasionally for short visits, and her absence was not felt in the day-to-day details of living. But Steve was an integral – the best – part of his life; his companionship, support, and love so much a part of Mark's daily world, that his death could never, under any circumstances, be anything but an utter devastation of his father's existence. And to have been responsible for that death was an agony of indescribable proportions – a source of grief and guilt so intense as to be literally unbearable. Mark remembered confronting Carol's murderer and telling him that he would see him put to death, that nothing they did to him would be enough. He wondered what punishment would be meted out to him, and reflected in despair that nothing they could do to him could ever equal the agony of the emotional torment he had inflicted upon himself.


	8. Chapter 8

Jesse turned his gaze to the monitors above his friend's bed for what had to be the hundredth time; and for the hundredth time, there was no sign of improvement to encourage him. If the new antibiotics were going to work, it had to be soon. He sighed, trying to stay optimistic. Steve had survived so much, he simply couldn't believe that it could end this way. He would pull through. He had to. The alternative was unthinkable.

"Come on, Steve," he urged again. "You have to keep fighting. Your dad needs you." He had chatted till he was almost hoarse, first encouraging, then cajoling, then recounting a variety of their more amusing adventures, hoping the sound of his voice would make a connection and help give Steve the strength to hold on. The consistent lack of reaction left him discouraged, but as a doctor he knew that unconscious patients can sometimes hear what is said to them even if they can't respond, and he was determined to keep trying.

This had to be the longest two days Jesse could ever remember; most of that time spent by the bedside of his best friend, the older brother he had never had. As he sat there looking at him, Jesse thought of all the ways he had benefited from Steve's presence in his life and the immense hole that would be left if he died. Before he had met the Sloans, he had flitted from place to place, always eager and enthusiastic for new experiences and new people, but never settling long enough to develop strong relationships. His medical education had provided the only stability in his life. Now, between Mark, Steve and Amanda, he had his own family, and he had learnt the value of such a support system.

Jesse stretched, trying to work out the kinks that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his back. Maybe the chairs in Community General were as uncomfortable as these, but he'd never sat in one for so long. Occasionally he'd spelled Mark in one of his all-too-frequent vigils at Steve's bedside, but Mark had always borne the brunt of those sessions. He wished the older doctor could be here now for more reasons than one. As worried as he was about Steve, at least his problems fell within the purview of medicine – Jesse's own area of expertise, where he felt competent to handle most situations. He was more concerned right now about Mark, partly because he had no idea how to help him. Mark had closed himself off in a morass of guilt and despair. With no other mental outlet, sitting in a cell not knowing from moment to moment if his much-loved son was alive must be a fair definition of hell, and Jesse was at a loss to know what to do for him. After he had left the jail yesterday, Jesse had called Mark's lawyer in an effort to get him into town for the arraignment the next day. Don Freeman had agreed to drive up at once, and, happy to be relieved of responsibility on the legal issues, Jesse had gone to the cabin to fetch Mark some clean clothes.

He had not wanted to take a lot of time, but he badly wanted to see if he could find something to help Mark, and was unable to resist the urge to look around. He looked out on the back patio, but there was not much out there – just an empty bowl and a glass, lying on the ground under a picnic table. He suspected that the wild animals had finished off most of the food, and the police had taken what was left to check on Mark's claim of drugs.

The path up the hill was clearly marked, and it was obvious that it had seen a fair amount of foot traffic in the last couple of days. Jesse climbed fast, the brisk movement after his recent inactivity and frustrations proving briefly beneficial to his mood. The clearing was marked off with police tape, and he stared into the peaceful glade, unable to associate Mark's horrific tale of bloodshed and confusion with the tranquil beauty of the clearing. By edging around the police tape, he could see over the cliff, the broken vegetation testimony to Mark's fall to the lake. "That's one mystery solved," he muttered to himself; then, even more depressed than before, he left the area.

He dropped the clothes off at the sheriff's office, but didn't go in to see Mark again. He had nothing positive to offer him by way of comfort, and he knew that staying with Steve was the most constructive thing he could do for now to help both his friends.

As he was Steve's doctor, the hospital had been flexible about waiving visiting hours, and Jesse had stayed at Steve's side all that night. Apart from going to Mark's arraignment the next morning, he had scarcely moved out of the room.

Needing some activity now, he got up and walked to the window, gazing out at the mountains; but despite the beautiful view, he saw nothing as his mind focused internally, dwelling on the arraignment that morning. It had been uncomfortably close to a blood sport, he decided in retrospect, as the scene replayed itself in his mind.

Despite the differences in the size of the courtroom and the legal personnel, there had been enough resemblance to the last time Mark was on trial to send shivers of trepidation down Jesse's spine. He knew that this was only an arraignment to establish a plea and decide the issue of bail, but the travesty of justice committed years ago had echoed in his memory, leaving him suddenly pessimistic about the outcome of this process.

He knew this must be even more agonizing for Mark than that previous ordeal. Although he had had no chance to talk to him before the proceedings, he saw the desperate question in his friend's eyes as he entered the room, and was forced to shake his head to indicate that Steve's condition remained unchanged. Mark's shoulders slumped, and he sat heavily in his chair, head bowed, until the arrival of the judge. Jesse was relieved beyond measure that Mark had Don Freeman there to handle the procedures because he knew how desperately Mark wanted to get out of jail to see Steve.

The judge ordered Mark to stand while the charges against him were read. As the stark words "for the attempted murder of Steven Sloan" reverberated round the cold room, Mark swayed slightly and put his hands on the table in front of him to steady himself. Jesse was grateful he couldn't see Mark's expression at that moment. The formal public accusation of this crime for which Mark already excoriated himself must be exacerbating his private agony.

"How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?" The relentless process continued with no consideration for the pain of the accused. The judge stared at Mark, waiting, not too patiently, for a response that Mark seemed unable to give. He remained standing, leaning against the table, but stared at the judge helplessly, and Jesse suddenly understood his dilemma. Mark considered himself guilty, whatever the extenuating circumstances, but to admit that might sabotage his last chances of getting to Steve's side. Jesse ached in sympathy as he realized that Mark simply couldn't bring himself to speak. He glared at the judge, hoping he would relent, but there was no sign of compassion on that stony face.

As the silence grew, Freeman stood up. "My client pleads 'not guilty' your honor." With a gentle hand on Mark's shoulder, he pressed him down into his seat; then the lawyer continued. "My client, Mark Sloan, is a respected member of the Los Angeles community. He has served, with distinction, as a surgeon for nearly 40 years and is still employed as Chief of Internal Medicine at Community General Hospital there. He is financially stable. We ask that bail be set at a negligible amount since he is clearly no flight risk."

Freeman sat down, clearly satisfied with his brief presentation; but, looking at the prosecutor's determined face, Jesse didn't think it would be that easy. He was right.

The prosecutor, Ken Barrows, started on the attack immediately. "We ask that bail be denied in this case, your honor. Dr. Sloan has no residence in this community, no job or financial ties here. Moreover, Dr. Sloan has been tried and convicted of murder before."

Jesse was on his feet to protest, but Freeman beat him to it with a heated, "Objection, your honor! My client was later released, and all charges were dropped."

"Yes," sneered Barrows. "Dr. Sloan has proven very elusive. Nevertheless, when I talked to the Los Angeles Police Department, I was informed that similar charges have been pending before." He continued with a list of dubious actions on Mark's part that, taken in their entirety, seemed to brand him a shady character if not a hardened criminal.

Jesse listened to Barrows twist the truth with dismay. He wondered whom he had talked to in the LAPD – obviously someone who bore a grudge against either Steve or Mark, probably for their phenomenal arrest rate. Mark's unconventional approach and corresponding successes must really generate some rancor among a few of the more orthodox detectives. However, it also occurred to Jesse that it could just be the police department closing ranks against someone who had shot one of their own. Either way, it seemed like the seal on Mark's fate.

Freeman protested that there were no formal accusations or convictions in any of these cases, but Barrows succeeded in making this sound like a matter of a rich and influential man using his money and contacts to worm out of any legal trouble. Even Jesse felt that a stranger listening would believe that Mark's life was tarnished by a pattern of violence and evasion of legal consequences.

Barrows was saving his most powerful arguments for last. "Your honor, Lieutenant Steve Sloan's condition is extremely critical. It is quite likely that the charges against Dr. Sloan will be upgraded to murder." For the first time, Jesse saw Mark react, as if the words had been a physical blow. The unthinking cruelty behind that comment made Jesse long to hit the man.

"Your honor, Dr. Sloan has admitted shooting his son. This would seem to fall under the category of domestic violence, and to protect his son..."

"No!" Mark protested, his voice hoarse. "Please! I would never deliberately hurt my son. I just want to see him."

"Your honor." Barrows smiled triumphantly. "Dr. Sloan shot his son and is not even disputing that fact. He cannot be allowed to see him until after the trial. I wouldn't want any more accidents to befall Lt. Sloan or for his testimony to come under any 'undue influence.'"

Freeman shot up again, but the judge waved him down. "You have made your point, Mr. Barrows. Dr. Sloan has no roots in this community, there have been some suspicious activities in the past, and under the circumstances, I certainly can't justify granting Dr. Sloan access to his son. Bail is denied. Dr. Sloan, you will be remanded in custody in the regional jail in Sacramento. A trial date will be set for August 25th."

Jesse couldn't bring himself to look at Mark, but heard his whispered "No!" of agonized denial. This was a double blow to the only hopes he had of seeing Steve. Not only would he not be released on bail, but he would be taken further away from him, with the prospect of remaining incarcerated for four months before being presented with a chance of proving his innocence, or at least lack of culpability, in the shooting.

Mark was led away, moving like an automaton, looking neither to the left or right or even back at Jesse. He hardly seemed able to assimilate this latest blow, and Jesse wondered at what point the cumulative effects of the shocks he had suffered would catch up with him.

As he stood in the hospital room now with Steve, Jesse hoped that Mark could hold it together a little longer. He was convinced that the issue would be settled one way or another long before August. If Steve died, he really believed Mark wouldn't be long behind him. Mark was one of the most resilient people he knew, but everyone had an Achilles heel, and Mark's was Steve. However if Steve woke up, surely he would be able to clear up the charges and get his father released from jail.

Jesse groaned as another thought struck him. How would he ever explain to Steve that his father was in jail again? It was all too reminiscent of the last time Mark had been arrested. It had fallen to him to break the news to Steve, and it had been one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. Steve had been in no condition to hear the real reason for his father's absence, but giving him no explanation made him even more agitated. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Jesse had postponed the inevitable for as long as he could, but eventually had capitulated and, as gently as possible, explained the circumstances, downplaying Mark's predicament as much as possible. Steve had shown little overt reaction beyond closing his eyes and setting his jaw, but the monitors had betrayed his real distress, and Jesse had been on the verge of tranquilizing him to prevent a relapse.

Jesse had no wish to repeat any part of that experience, but he was aware that major parts of the situation were different here. Steve held the key to what had really happened on the hill, and Jesse was convinced that his explanation would exculpate Mark. He moved back to Steve's side and sat down in the chair again, searching for something to say that didn't sound like a platitude. Sometimes he got a superstitious feeling that Steve was just waiting for Mark to arrive before he woke up.

"Your dad would be here if he could; he really wants to be, you have to know that," he whispered fervently.

He unconsciously laid his hand on his friend's arm in his effort to reassure Steve that he had not been abandoned by his father. It took a minute to sink in, but he suddenly realized that he wasn't feeling the heat that had been rising continually from his friend. His temperature was falling. He called a nurse, and they drew some blood for tests. As he waited for the results, Jesse tried to contain his excitement, not wanting a celebration that might prove premature.

When the results came back, the blood work confirmed that Steve's body, with the help of the new drugs, was finally beating the infection. He still showed no signs of returning to consciousness, but, confident that the corner had been turned, Jesse slept deeply that night for the first time since Mark had called him, 48 hours ago.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve seemed closer to consciousness in the morning, even emerging once to mutter "Dad?" weakly before subsiding back to unresponsiveness; and Jesse was convinced that full awareness was only a matter of time. He really wanted to be present when Steve woke up, fearing he would be disoriented and confused, and not wanting a stranger to answer questions he might have about his father. However, of even more urgency in his mind was the need to reassure Mark of Steve's certain recovery. He knew that that news was of paramount importance to Mark's very survival. He decided that if he left quickly, it was possible to meet both his goals; he could inform Mark of Steve's improved condition and return before Steve recovered enough to be asking questions.

He left the room to search for Dr. Erickson, wanting to inform him of his intentions in case Steve did recover full consciousness while he was away. The doctor promised to reassure his patient as much as he could while revealing as little as possible about his father.

The drive to Sacramento seemed interminable to Jesse. He was excited to be the bearer of good news for a change, as he knew there was nothing that would mean more to Mark than the knowledge of his son's improved condition. However, another thought occurred to him, dimming his otherwise buoyant mood. With both Steve and Mark hors de combat, he was left in the position of chief investigator on this case. Normally his friends took charge, and he was happy to operate under their instructions. He didn't like the idea of bearing sole responsibility for proving Mark's innocence, and he hoped the older doctor would be sufficiently revived by the news of Steve's progress to make some suggestions as to his next move.

As Jesse arrived at the jail, he approached its forbidding structure with some trepidation. He was brought into an interview room to wait for Mark. As he looked around distastefully, he was struck by the bleakness of the surroundings, and his fears for Mark's well-being, both physical and emotional, increased. This bolstered his determination to see Mark set free. With his gentle and caring approach to life, Mark was the last person who should be subjected to such a violent and hopeless environment.

Footsteps approached, and Mark was ushered in. He looked terrible – drawn and exhausted. His eyes met Jesse's immediately in desperate appeal, and Jesse hastened to reassure him.

"Steve's OK. He's going to be just fine. He...whoa!" He dashed forward to support Mark who looked like he was going to collapse. So strong had been Mark's fear that Jesse was here to tell him that Steve had died, that the intense relief that overwhelmed him was almost too great to bear. The sudden release of the tension that had been the only thing keeping him on his feet left him limp and shaky. Jesse helped him to a chair, and sat in silence with his hand on Mark's shoulder, giving him time to recover.

"I'm sorry, Mark," he apologized eventually. "I should have found another way to get the news to you sooner. That was quite a shock, huh?"

Mark finally looked up, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "It's the kind of shock I'm happy to take."

Jesse was relieved to see a return, however slight, of his sense of humor, and he grinned back. Studying his friend, he was happy to see that the look of bone-deep stress and weariness had faded somewhat. Jesse tried to inject some normalcy into the emotional situation by discussing the medical details of Steve's recovery, putting as positive a slant on it as possible. Mark seemed to be listening intently, but he kept his gaze down on the floor and asked no questions until Jesse finished his explanation.

"Did he...did he say anything?" Mark asked hesitantly. He still didn't look at Jesse, and for once Jesse was at a loss to know exactly what was going through his friend's mind; but he realized enough to know that he was walking through a potential minefield. Ever since he had delivered his good news, Mark, after his initial relief, had retreated into a despondent and uncharacteristic lethargy, as if every particle of energy had drained out of him.

"He hadn't really woken up when I left...not that there's any doubt he'll come round soon," he added hastily. "It's just that I wanted to let you know as soon as I could. He kind of said your name once, like he was asking for you, but that was all."

Mark nodded, but offered no further comment, and Jesse wasn't sure if his response had been the one Mark had wanted to hear or not. He decided to change tack to confront the biggest problem he felt was now facing them.

"So, what should we do next? How can we get you out of here?"

There was silence for a long moment then Mark asked inconsequentially, "How many people do you think I've helped to send to jail?"

"I don't know," Jesse answered cautiously. "A lot." Feeling that Mark needed reassurance on some point, he added: "You've helped a lot of people and saved many others by putting murderers away."

Mark nodded. "A lot," he confirmed; then fell silent again.

Jesse felt that some response was called for, but he was foundering in the dark. After some consideration, he had an idea about what might be bothering his friend. "They deserved to be here, Mark. You don't."

For the first time in minutes, Mark looked up. Although the white-to-the-bone look of shock had left his face, the strain around his eyes remained. "Don't I? I shot my own son. I shot my own..." His voice petered out as he tried to swallow against the pain of the muscles in his throat tightening.

Jesse's own throat ached in sympathy. "You were drugged! It wasn't your fault, Mark. You can't hold yourself responsible for your actions under those circumstances."

"How could I do it? Even drugged I should have been able to recognize him. It doesn't matter what condition I was in, I would always know him. If I remembered he was there later, I must have been aware of him at the time. And I shot him." His voice was barely audible, and it sounded more like an argument he had repeated to himself many times than as if he was trying to convince Jesse.

If Mark had started shouting in an obvious display of guilt, Jesse might have actually been reassured that he was attempting to deal with the clear emotional repercussions of the shooting, but this quiet, almost palpable anguish left him with the fear that Mark was on the edge of a real emotional crisis.

Jesse took him gently by the shoulders, not liking the unusual feeling of frailty under his hands. "Mark, listen to me. You are exhausted, and that's contributing to the feelings of depression you're suffering from. You need a good sleep, and everything will seem a lot brighter in the morning. Steve will clear everything up now that he's awake." He felt Mark flinch at the mention of his son.

"Mark?" he queried gently, but got a mute head shake in response. Mark felt incapable of explaining the conflicting feelings racing through him. It was just too much effort.

"Mark, what else can you tell me about this kid, Skylar?" Jesse asked, hoping to redirect his friend's mind in a more productive direction. He felt that the best way of helping Mark escape from floundering in this unhealthy remorse was by sparking his formidable curiosity and focusing his intellect back on the puzzle confronting them. This attempt met with failure, however, as Mark sidestepped the question.

"I'm sorry, Jesse, I just can't seem to think right now. I am really tired."

"Mark…" Jesse started.

"Jesse, I really do appreciate you bringing me the news about Steve. But the best thing you can do for me now is to go back and take care of him." He saw Jesse open his mouth, and tried to forestall further protest. "Please, Jesse. I just need to know that you're there to make sure he fully recovers."

"Can I tie him to the bed, because I think that's what its going to take?"

There was no answering smile to this attempt to lighten the mood, and although he hated to leave Mark in such a dispirited state, Jesse reluctantly recognized that there was little else he could do. He hoped Mark would be able to sleep now that he knew Steve would recover. He said goodbye, and after a few more comforting words for his friend, moved over to the door and knocked, signaling he was ready to leave. The guard opened the door, and Jesse was on his way out, when he was stopped by a desperate plea.

"Wait, Jesse, please tell him..." Mark swallowed painfully, overwhelmed by the myriad of things he needed to tell his son; that he was sorry, that he loved him, that he would rather have died himself than hurt him. Mark closed his eyes and turned away from Jesse as a new wave of despair swept over him. None of these things could be said by proxy. His desperate need to see his son remained, unabated by the news of his improved condition. His futile struggle to find the right message was interrupted.

"I'll tell him, Mark," Jesse said softly from behind him; then he was gone, leaving Mark alone.

Mark was taken back to his cell where he lay down on his bunk, a small part of his mind gratefully noting the absence of his cell mate. His body was screaming with exhaustion, but he fought the call of sleep, dreading the dreams that lay in wait. In the past three nights, he had rarely succumbed to the sleep his body craved, too concerned about his son to allow himself that luxury. But occasionally, he had slipped unaware into a dreaming state and found himself kneeling over his son's dead body, his hands drenched in blood, as he stared in horror at the open eyes staring accusingly back at him. These nightmares were enough to slam him back into full consciousness, terrified and shaking.

Mark had been unable to confess to Jesse the thoughts concerning his son that plagued him after this dream. With his worst nightmare relieved, knowing now that Steve would survive, Mark found himself unable to dismiss the new doubts that haunted him. How could he explain to anyone that although he felt a desperate longing to see his son again, to see with his own eyes that he was still alive, at the same time he dreaded that meeting. With the rational part of his mind, he knew Steve would never blame him for the shooting, whatever the circumstances; but the strength of his guilt didn't allow for much rationality. The truth was that he was afraid to look into his son's eyes for fear he would see disappointment or even betrayal in his face. He had destroyed the trust and love between them that was the most precious thing in his life.

Now the former tension in his body was replaced by an equally consuming apathy. As he lay stretched listlessly on his bunk, his thoughts moved relentlessly back to his son, and he wondered dismally if Steve's returning consciousness would be haunted by dreams of his father's betrayal.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve woke slowly, gradually becoming aware of pain in his abdominal region, a rasping irritation in his throat, and a sensation of extreme lassitude. He shifted uncomfortably, and felt a stinging resistance tug at his right arm. Contemplating these physical sensations, he also noticed a vaguely familiar itchiness on his chest. Finally forcing his eyes open, he was able to identify the sources of discomfort: an IV drip in his arm accounted for the resistance when he had moved – and possibly the lassitude, he thought – the irritation in his throat was due to the gastric tube inserted in it, and the leads to the heart monitor, the steady beep of which he now recognized in the background, were causing the slight itchiness on his chest. Obviously he was in the hospital.

Gazing around the room, however, he was conscious of a feeling that something wasn't quite right with this scenario. It was a moment or two before he realized that the problem was with the room itself. He peered muzzily upwards. Stucco. Yes it was definitely stucco. He didn't like stucco, but he wasn't sure why. It was ….wrong. Community General didn't have stucco. Somehow that thought struck him as humorous – he had been in the hospital enough times to recognize its décor. But this was Community General, wasn't it? He vaguely remembered hearing Jesse talking to him, in fact, he talked a lot; he wouldn't shut up. So it must be Community General; but something else was wrong. Where was his father? He didn't remember his father's voice. He should be here. Whenever Steve ended up in the hospital, Mark was always there. It was one of the constants in the universe. The thought triggered a sudden, urgent feeling that he had to find his father. He wasn't sure why, but somehow it was important that he find him. Steve started to move, but as he tensed his muscles, an agonizing pain shot through him, and the darkness of unconsciousness descended again.

The next time he woke, he didn't feel quite so drugged, but the pain in his abdomen was a constant ache. His mouth felt dry, but he didn't try to move; he just lay there searching through his mind for answers. He frowned, concentrating on trying to remember what had happened to him. Surprised, and a trifle dismayed, to find that he couldn't seem to remember being injured, he focussed on identifying what the last thing was that he did remember. The image of sitting next to his father beside a peaceful lake in the woods flashed through his mind. Vacation. That was it. He and his father had gone on their long-delayed fishing vacation. That would explain why he wasn't at Community General.

His satisfaction with reaching this conclusion was diminished a moment later as he realized that he still couldn't account for the fact that he was in a hospital at all. And, as he contemplated the implications of the various pieces of equipment he was hooked up to, as well as the pain and general grogginess that he recognized as a sign of heavy medication, he realized that whatever had put him here must have been serious; he knew an ICU when he was in one. Automatically casting another searching glance around the room, a frown creased his brow as he realized that something was still missing from the scene: his father. A frisson of fear percolated through his drugged mind. Whenever Steve was seriously injured, his father usually remained at his side until he woke up; but this time there was no sign of him – not even a sweater draped across the bedside chair or a mess of newspaper on the bedside table. What's more, the more he focussed on the thought of his father, the more he found himself experiencing an uneasy sensation that there was something wrong, something to do with his dad.

As he was still trying to identify the cause of his unease, a nurse entered the room. Seeing him awake and looking around, she smiled at him.

"Well, it's nice to see you finally with us," she said cheerfully. "How are you feeling?"

"I'll feel better when I get this tube out of my throat," Steve replied hoarsely around the soreness. "What happened to me?"

The nurse looked surprised. "You were shot," she told him. "The doctor will give you all the details of your condition when he comes in a few minutes, but you're doing much better now," she continued reassuringly. "Now that you're awake, we should be able to get that tube out soon."

Steve considered the information he'd just been given. He still couldn't seem to remember anything about being shot. "How long have I been here?" he asked.

"About three days now," the nurse replied.

Steve considered the implications of that. Three days. That could explain Mark's absence; if he had been here all that time, maybe he had finally left for some much-needed rest. Steve felt a pang of concern and regret as he thought of what his father must have been going through – three days was a long time for his dad to have been sweating out, yet again, the wait to see if his son was going to survive.

"Where's my father?" he asked.

"Your father?" The nurse paused on her way out the door, repeating the query uncertainly.

"Dr. Mark Sloan," Steve elaborated. "He has been here, hasn't he?"

There was a noticeable hesitation; then she said, with a bright smile pinned to her face, "Don't worry, you're safe here." She then walked briskly out into the corridor.

The incongruity of that last remark struck a chill through Steve for no reason that he could name; and he struggled to quell the sudden anxiety that welled within him. Concentrating on remembering everything he could, he realized that the last thing he recalled with any clarity was giving evidence at the Tremelan trial; everything after that was a blank. What if some of Tremelan's goons had tried to kill him in revenge for his testimony? If he had driven straight back to the lake, he would have led them right to his father. If that were the case, what had they done with Mark?

His stomach roiled as fear swept over him. He couldn't bear the thought that his father might be hurt because of him. Steve had always accepted the dangers of the job for himself. He loved being a detective, although he regretted the worry it caused his father; but for Mark to suffer because of his choices was agonizing. He told himself that there was no evidence yet that there was anything wrong with his father, and he tried hard to believe it, but every instinct was telling him that Mark was in trouble.

Steve tried to focus his mind on tracing his actions after the trial, and found that he could remember finishing up his testimony and heading back to the cabin to resume what should have been an uninterrupted few days of pressure-free enjoyment. What he couldn't seem to recall, however, was actually arriving at the cabin; although somehow, he had a feeling that he had gotten there. As he pressed himself to remember more, all he could come up with was a renewal of that disquieting feeling that there had been something very wrong when he got there. Something that had to do with his father…

He was still trying to pin down the elusive memory, when the door opened, and Dr. Erickson came in. As soon as he introduced himself, Steve started plying him with questions about what had happened and if he knew where Mark was. The doctor refused to tell him anything until he had examined Steve and determined his condition. If everything looked good, he pointed out, they could remove the tube from Steve's throat, which would make the conversation much more comfortable for him. Recognizing from the surgeon's demeanor that he'd get more information sooner if he cooperated, Steve forced himself to contain his impatience.

As he examined Steve, Dr. Erickson explained the details of his medical condition – how he had been shot in the abdomen, puncturing the appendix, resulting in the peritonitis that had left him in such critical condition. Steve listened attentively, his stomach knotting up again as this confirmed his belief that his father would never have willingly left him in such circumstances. After finishing his exam, Dr. Erickson called in a nurse and removed the gastric tube.

When it was finally all over, and the nurse had left him sucking gratefully on some ice chips, Steve decided it was time to push the doctor for some more information.

"Have you seen my father?" he asked bluntly. "Can you tell me where he is?"

"All I can tell you is that he's not here," replied the surgeon. "You were the only patient brought to the hospital. Your friend Dr. Travis has been here for the last couple of days, however. I'm sure he'll be back shortly. And the sheriff asked to be notified as soon as you were awake, so I expect he'll be by soon as well."

Steve reflected that he was just as anxious to interview the sheriff as that officer was to see him. He said as much to Dr. Erickson, who smiled slightly.

"I'm sure he'll be able to tell you whatever you want to know." He looked at Steve sternly. "But you're going to have to keep calm. You're just starting to recover not only from a gunshot wound but from a serious infection that could easily have been fatal. It's important that you get your rest and don't push things too soon."

"Why can't I remember what happened?" Steve demanded in frustration.

"There could be a number of reasons for that," the doctor replied. "You did get a bump on the head – probably from when you fell; that could have caused a mild concussion that could account for the loss of memory of the actual events surrounding the injury. Or there could be an element of traumatic shock involved." He surveyed Steve thoughtfully, noting his obvious tension and anxiety. "There's a good possibility that the memories will return," he told the detective reassuringly. "You'll just have to relax and give yourself a chance to heal. Your body's been through a tremendous amount of stress and trauma."

"I'll relax when I know what happened to my father," Steve declared. He barely heard the doctor's further reassurances, his mind occupied with trying to process the little additional information he now had. Unfortunately, it only served to intensify his worries. It was now apparent that Mark had not been seen at the hospital since Steve had been admitted. And he could come up with no good explanation for that. Only some kind of physical constraint could prevent his father from being at his son's side at this time, and Steve felt a sharp, desperate fear clutch at his heart as he considered the possibility that his father was being held somewhere by force. Or perhaps Mark was lying seriously injured somewhere undiscovered, or even, Steve thought in a wave of dread, he might have been brought in, not to the ER, but to the morgue. He closed his eyes and drew in a few deep breaths, trying to get a grip on himself. It wasn't going to help his father any if he fell apart. It was just so hard to think clearly through the mind-fuzzing effects of the medication. He wished that Jesse would come back – surely he must know what had happened to Mark. It was still faintly possible that there was some logical, less catastrophic explanation for all this. He desperately wished he could think of one.


	11. Chapter 11

It was only a few minutes after Dr. Erickson had left that the sheriff arrived.

"Lt. Sloan?" The sheriff moved into the room to stand by the side of the bed. "I'm Sheriff Consten. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Steve looked over the man in front of him, relieved to finally have someone there who could tell him what had happened – to Mark as well as to himself.

"I'll answer whatever I can," Steve responded. "But first…" he hesitated briefly for a moment. Now that the opportunity had presented itself, he found himself suddenly reluctant to ask the question, dreading the possible answer. "Can you tell me what happened to my father?"

"Well now, you don't have to worry about him, Lieutenant," drawled the sheriff; "he's taken care of. What I need first is to take your statement."

A frown creased Steve's brow as he considered this reply. It certainly didn't do much to reassure him. In fact, it didn't really even give him any indication of whether or not Mark was still alive – 'taken care of' could mean anything. About the only thing it did imply was that the sheriff did, indeed, know what had happened to his father. And this attempt to avoid sharing that information was arousing Steve's anger as well as increasing his anxiety. Why the hell wouldn't anyone give him a straight answer about his father?

"Look, I've already said that I'll tell you everything I can," Steve said, his voice edged with anger and impatience. "But I need to know now what happened to my father."

"Look, Lieutenant, this is my jurisdiction, and I'm asking the questions here. As a law officer yourself, I'm expecting you to cooperate in this investigation. I'm telling you there's nothing to worry about regarding your father; I can assure you he's unhurt. What I need you to tell me is what happened during the shooting."

Steve was rapidly taking an extreme dislike to this man, whom he recognized as the type who enjoyed wielding the little power he had, and for a moment he didn't believe him. It didn't make any sense that Mark wouldn't be at the hospital if there was nothing wrong. However, something in the sheriff's manner was surprisingly convincing. The resulting intensity of relief that washed through his system left him weak, and he finally relaxed against the pillows, covering his eyes for a minute to conceal the depth of his emotion.

"There's not much I can tell you at the moment, Sheriff," he said after a moment. "I was in Sacramento testifying at the Tremelan trial. I remember driving back, but I can't seem to remember what happened after I got here. I suppose I might have been followed." He watched as the sheriff stood there, impassively considering this information.

"Seems a bit peculiar that you don't remember anything at all about what happened," the sheriff finally remarked.

"It seems peculiar to me, too," retorted Steve in exasperation. "The doctor, however, seems to think it isn't all that unusual. Why don't you try telling me something, and maybe it'll help me remember."

"Maybe," said the sheriff expressionlessly. "The doc did say that you might need a bit of help rememberin'." He gazed at Steve, his attitude one of slightly skeptical wariness. "We got notified that you had called 911 saying you'd been shot and needed an ambulance. We found you in the woods not far from a cabin belonging to Dr. Walter Harley. Seems you and your father had been staying there." He paused, obviously waiting for a response from Steve.

"That's right," Steve confirmed impatiently. "Walter's a friend of my dad's. He loaned us the use of the cabin for our vacation." He brushed this aside as inconsequential. "So what about my father?" he demanded.

"We'll get to him in a minute," the sheriff replied uninformatively. "You sure you don't remember anything else? Seems if you were conscious long enough to call for help, you should be able to remember something about it."

"Seems like it to me, too," Steve responded shortly. "But I don't." He suddenly lost his patience with this hostile-witness treatment. "Look, I don't know what you're playing at here, but we're neither of us going to get anywhere this way. I want to know what happened to me just as badly as you do, so why don't you tell me what, if anything, you've found out so far. And tell me what happened to my father!"

"If you don't remember anything, what makes you so sure that something's happened to him?" asked Consten, with the air of man who's trapped someone into a damaging admission.

Steve gazed at him in total incomprehension, by now thoroughly furious, his anxiety resurging as he realized that the sheriff was still avoiding telling him exactly what had happened to his father. "Because nobody here seems to know where he is. Because he's apparently not been here since I was brought in. Because nobody's answering my questions, damn it!"

"There could be plenty of reasons for him not being here," suggested the sheriff calmly.

"No there couldn't," Steve declared flatly. "He's my father; if I get hurt, he's there." He glared at Consten. "Look, just tell me what's going on. Do you have any idea what happened – to me or my father? Do you have any leads? Do you have anything at all?"

"Oh we know what happened," Consten replied with maddening calm. "And we've already got the man who shot you. I just wanted to get your side of the story to see how it meshed with his."

Steve stared at him, surprised. Maybe he had underestimated this man if he had successfully arrested Tremelan's hitman.

"That's good to hear. Congratulations. Who was it?"

"Your father."

"What?!" Steve stared at the officer in disbelief. Later, he would wonder why he hadn't anticipated what the sheriff would say – the clues were all in front of him; but it was such a complete impossibility that, even when it was uttered, all he could do was stare at Consten in amazement, feeling a sudden impulse to laugh in the man's face. That impulse died quickly, however, at the sheriff's expression.

"You're serious!" he exclaimed incredulously. The thought of what his father must have suffered to even be accused of such a crime erased any vestiges of humor he might have felt. "You're out of your mind! My father is a doctor; he hates guns, and he'd never hurt anybody – least of all me." He stopped, temporarily unable to coherently marshal a defense to an accusation whose absurdity was, to him, self-evident. He thought of his father's consummate gentleness, compassion, and good humor, and felt a resurgence of anger at the inability of this man to understand how impossible this was. "Look, what could possibly make you think my father would shoot me?"

"Well," replied the sheriff, unperturbed by this outburst, "there's the fact that his fingerprints were on the gun."

"That's crazy," Steve said scornfully; "my father doesn't even own a gun."

"Actually, the gun is registered to Walter Harley. Your father must have taken it from the cabin." Consten didn't give Steve time to react to this statement before adding, "And then there's the fact that he had blood on his jacket. We tested it – it was your blood alright."

"He probably got that on him trying to help me after I was shot," Steve retorted.

"For a doctor, he sure had a strange way of trying to help," Consten replied sarcastically. "We found him half a mile away, heading through the woods. He hadn't even tried to staunch the bleeding; and you were the one who called for the ambulance." He smiled sardonically as Steve stared at him in obvious confusion. "Besides," he added, "he confessed."

That claim was so unexpected as to momentarily take Steve's breath away. But only for a moment.

"That's ridiculous," he declared positively. "What do you mean 'he confessed'?"

"He admitted that he shot you." The calm assertion, uttered with no hint of uncertainty or defensiveness, was unexpectedly convincing.

"What are you saying … it was an accident of some kind?" asked Steve, trying to make sense of a situation which seemed completely incomprehensible.

"I don't think firing two shots at someone can be considered an accident," the sheriff replied dryly.

Steve struggled to process this information. He didn't know if it was the medication he was on, or the total unreality of the scenario that was suddenly being thrust at him, but his brain seemed incapable of rational analysis, the only clear thought he seemed to have being one of complete rejection of the idea that his father could ever have knowingly harmed him in any way.

"Look, what did my father say happened?" he demanded.

"Well, he hasn't actually said much," replied Consten dryly. "He claimed he was drugged at the time, but beyond that, he's pretty much keeping his mouth shut. I think he's going for a diminished capacity plea."

The implication of those remarks suddenly caught up with Steve, hitting him with full force. "You've arrested him?" he exclaimed in horror.

"That's what we usually do with people who shoot someone, Lieutenant. Maybe it's different down there in the big city, but up here, we take a dim view of people trying to kill each other, especially fellow cops."

"My father did not try to kill me," Steve asserted unequivocally. He tried to find a way to get through to this imbecilicly dense officer. "Look, what possible motive do you think my father could have for killing me?"

"Motive's not my problem right now," Consten replied. "We've got conclusive evidence and an admission of guilt; you know that's all we need for a conviction."

"You said he was drugged; he might not even be remembering clearly what happened himself. How do you even know for sure that he shot me?"

"Like I said, his fingerprints were all over the gun, including on the trigger, and his jacket was covered with your blood." Consten met Steve's angry gaze imperturbably. "Besides, I said he 'claimed' he was drugged; we don't have any evidence of that. We sent a blood sample to the lab, but it came back negative."

"Maybe it was a drug you didn't test for," Steve suggested in frustration. "If my father says he was drugged, he was drugged. Hell, he's a doctor, he ought to know. Besides, there's no other way this could have happened."

"Even if that were true," replied the sheriff, "it doesn't make it any better. Shooting someone while under the influence of illegal drugs is still attempted homicide."

"Not if you were given the drugs involuntarily," Steve retorted. "Have you even tried to find the person who drugged him?"

"I already told you; we don't have any evidence that he was drugged at all. And we certainly don't have any evidence that there was anyone else involved."

Steve couldn't believe the stubborn closed-mindedness of this man. He obviously was perfectly satisfied with his own version of what had happened and was disinclined to make any effort to consider further. Steve felt a savage desire to try to beat some sense into the sheriff's thick skull.

"I want to talk to my father," he declared abruptly.

"I don't see how that's going to be possible," Consten replied. "You're obviously not going anywhere yet, and they're not allowed phone calls at the county holding cells."

The news that Mark wasn't even being held in the local jail, but had already been transferred to a regional prison and was cut off from communication, hit Steve like a physical blow. The thought of his father suffering the brutality and deprivations of prison, frantic with worry over his son's condition, probably imagining the worst, was heart wrenching.

"Does he even know I'm alive?" he demanded in outrage. "Has anybody told him I'm going to be alright?"

"I expect your friend's keeping him posted," the sheriff said indifferently. "He's been by to talk to him a couple of times."

Before Steve could react to this callous unconcern, a nurse entered the room and addressed the sheriff. "I'm sorry, Sheriff," she said sternly, "you're going to have to leave now. It's time for Lt. Sloan's medication; and he's getting way too upset."

Steve suddenly became aware of the rapid and irregular beeping of the heart monitor to which he was still connected. He ignored the nurse's attempts to calm him as well as the sheriff's polite murmurs as he took his departure, glad to see the man leave before he succumbed to the rage that was consuming him and tried to deck him. The last thing he needed now was to tear open his wound or aggravate his condition and prolong his stay here. It was imperative that he get out of here as soon as possible and get to his father. He never liked feeling weak and incapable of action, but to be confined to this bed while his father was in trouble was intolerable.

Frustration ate at him as he tried to work through the confusing jumble of information. He fought his body's exhaustion, forcing himself to focus on figuring out what had really happened. Nothing made sense. That his father was at fault in the shooting was clearly impossible. He knew the depth of the love Mark had for him; his father was not overtly demonstrative or protective of him – he showed his love not in grand displays of affection, but in quiet little touches, gentle concern, and his steadfast supportive presence. The thought of what his father must be going through was a worse torment than the physical pain of his injury. Steve knew how much Mark worried about him and the agonies he endured whenever his son was injured. He could only imagine the anguish and guilt his dad must be feeling knowing that he had caused these injuries. Steve tried to imagine how he would feel if their positions were reversed, and shuddered, empathizing too deeply with the guilt his father must be feeling. And to be locked away from his son, unable to help, unable to be with him, not even knowing from minute to minute whether he was still alive, could only make the agony a thousand times worse. His heart aching for his father, he fervently hoped that Jesse was, in fact, currently engaged in reassuring Mark about his son's survival. Right now that was more than Steve himself could do.


	12. Chapter 12

As Jesse walked up to the hospital doors, he saw the sheriff's car pulling away, and wondered in alarm if that officer had already been there talking to Steve. He hurried into the building, mentally cursing the miserable construction detour that had gotten him lost and delayed his return; he had wanted to be there when Steve came around to full consciousness, wanted to be the one to break it to him that Mark had been arrested for the shooting. From the little he had seen of the sheriff, he was sure the man would have broken the news in the worst possible way.

Jesse went up to Steve's room, pausing only to speak to the nurse on duty to check on his friend's status. A few sentences were all it took to confirm his fears; the sheriff had indeed already spoken to Steve, who had been obviously agitated by the interview, although he had adamantly refused the sedative they had wanted to administer after the sheriff's departure. Jesse entered the room quietly, casting a practiced eye of assessment over the patient as he lay with eyes closed, his face pale and strained.

As Jesse approached the bed, Steve's eyes opened, and he turned to see who was there.

"Hey there," Jesse said. "How are you feeling?"

"Not very good," Steve replied grimly. "Tell me you've seen my dad."

"I just came from talking with him," Jesse assured him. "I told him you're going to be fine."

Steve felt some of the tension that gripped him dissipate as his most immediate concern was allayed. At least his father knew he was alive and going to be all right.

"How's he holding up, Jess?" Steve asked, the ordeal his father was undergoing still foremost in his mind.

"Hopefully better now that he knows you're going to be okay," Jesse replied, not wanting Steve to know how concerned he was about Mark. He sat on the edge of the bed, gazing soberly at his friend.

"Steve, what happened?" he asked. "How on earth did Mark end up shooting you?"

"I wish I knew," Steve replied in an agony of frustration. "I can't seem to remember anything about it! All I remember is getting back from testifying at Tremelan's trial; everything after that is a blank."

"Take it easy," Jesse soothed, trying to ease his friend's obvious anxiety, his mind busily trying to grasp the medical implications of Steve's statement, as well as the probable consequences for Mark. "What did Dr. Erickson say?"

"He said something about concussion or traumatic shock or something," Steve muttered.

Jesse nodded. "That makes sense. He didn't find anything physically wrong, then; that means you have a good chance of recovering your memory."

"In the meantime, that idiot sheriff has my father under arrest for attempted murder!" Steve said angrily. He looked up at Jesse, his anxiety for his father fairly radiating from him. "Jesse, what did Dad tell you? What did he say happened?"

"What did Consten tell you?" Jesse asked.

"All he said was that Dad admitted to shooting me but said he was drugged - a claim the sheriff apparently didn't believe," Steve replied bitterly. "He's obviously made up his mind and isn't interested in any further information. Not that I could give him any," he added, grimacing in self- disgust and frustration. He looked back at Jesse, his expression hardening. "Tell me everything Dad said; does he know who drugged him? How did he end up with Walter's gun? Does he." Steve hesitated almost imperceptibly before continuing, "Does he actually remember shooting me?"

Jesse mentally uttered a few choice epithets directed at the sheriff, but focussed on giving Steve the information he needed, even though he knew his friend was going to hate hearing it as much as he hated having to tell him. As concisely as he could, he told Steve what Mark had told him.

"While you were gone, Mark went fishing. When he came back to the cabin, there was a boy in there going through your things. He had a gun and pointed it at Mark when he entered. Don't worry - he didn't hurt him," he quickly added, as he felt Steve shift uneasily on the bed. He laughed wryly. "Mark, being Mark, ignored the gun, fixed him a meal, extracted his life story, and eventually got the kid to give him the gun. He was pretty hazy about what happened after that, but he's convinced he was drugged," Jesse continued, keeping a watchful eye on Steve to gauge his reaction to all this. "He says he remembers holding the gun, and wandering around the woods, and he remembers you being there, but he's not very clear on what exactly happened."

"Maybe that's because he wasn't the one who shot me," suggested Steve, with a flicker of hope. "If he doesn't remember actually firing the gun.."

Reluctantly, Jesse interrupted. "He does remember firing the gun." He hated to extinguish that faint hope, but he figured it was better to get it all laid out up front so they could figure out what to do. "And they found cordite on his hands. What he doesn't remember is what happened after that. The next thing he remembers is waking up down by the lake, confused and sick, with blood on his jacket." Jesse hesitated for a moment. "He said he had a vague image of you being with him, and he was afraid that you were hurt, so he was heading back to look for you when the sheriff's men found him and arrested him."

Steve turned his face away for a moment, trying to hide his reaction to the sudden, poignant image that rose in his mind of his father seeing himself stained with his son's blood, frantic to ascertain Steve's fate, callously hauled away as criminally responsible. He'd seen enough of Sheriff Consten to know that he probably hadn't wasted any compassion on his assumed culprit, possibly hadn't even bothered to tell him that his son was still alive. He felt a hot spurt of anger and a fierce determination to do whatever it took to free his father. He turned back to his friend, his mind searching for a way to prove his father's story.

"What about the drugs?" he asked Jesse. "Consten said they didn't find any in Dad's blood."

Jesse looked disgusted. "From what I can make out," he said, "they didn't even bother to draw his blood until several hours later, by which time a lot of drugs wouldn't leave any trace. And they didn't send him to the hospital to be checked or run a urinalysis which might still have picked up something."

"And nobody seriously checked out his story about the kid he found in the cabin." It was more a disgusted statement than a question. Steve's brow furrowed as he considered the little information he had. "There's got to be something that can confirm Dad's story," he said in frustration. "Why don't you go up to the cabin, see if there's any sign of food or drink that might have been drugged, any sign that the boy was there. Didn't Dad tell you the kid's name? Or anything else about him?"

Jesse hesitated, having a hard time meeting Steve's eyes. This was the part he really hated to tell his friend. Steve noticed the hesitation, and he felt his stomach tightening. "Jesse?" he prodded, anxiety sharpening his voice.

"Well, Mark hasn't actually been real talkative about the whole thing," Jesse said with obvious reluctance.

Steve's frown deepened. "What do you mean he's not been 'real talkative'? We need to know everything he can tell us in order to clear him."

Jesse took a deep breath and bit the bullet. "I don't think he's too interested in being cleared."

Steve felt a chill steal over him as the implication of what Jesse was saying dawned on him. "You said you told him that I'm going to be okay."

"I did," Jesse confirmed. "And I'm hoping that when he's had a chance to let that sink in, that it'll help." He couldn't quite put enough conviction in his voice, though, and knew that Steve had picked up that hint of doubt. "Look, Steve," he continued, seeing the toll the emotional strain was taking on his still seriously weakened friend, "I don't have to tell you how severe an emotional trauma it's been to your dad to know that he almost killed you. Between that and whatever side effects this unknown drug might have, it's not surprising he's not thinking very clearly right now. Up 'til now, the only thing he's cared about was finding out if you were going to make it. Now that he knows you're going to be all right, hopefully he'll start to come around again. In the meantime, it's important that you get some rest; you're still not completely out of the woods, you know." He saw Steve open his mouth to interject, and overrode him before he could speak. "If you start pushing yourself too hard too soon, you could rupture those stitches and bleed to death or risk a recurrence of infection; and I don't think Mark could handle that right now."

Steve swallowed his instinctive protest about his inability to rest while his father was in prison. As bitter as the knowledge was, he knew that Jesse was right. The best thing he could do for his father right now was to get himself well enough to get out of this hospital as soon as possible. In the meantime, however.

"Jesse, see if you can find out anything about this kid. We need to find him and make him tell the sheriff what happened."

"The sheriff's already looked for him," Jesse said, somewhat doubtfully. "He says there are no local boys by that name."

"The sheriff's an idiot," Steve retorted. "There can't be many schools around here. Try to find a yearbook for the local middle and high schools, and let Dad look at them. Hopefully, he can identify him."

"I will, Steve," Jesse assured him.

"Talk to Dad again," Steve urged him. "Get him to give you some more details. He's got to understand that this isn't his fault. Tell him it's going to be okay. Tell him." His voice petered out as he searched for the nonexistent phrases that could ease his father's pain.

Jesse smiled wryly at him. "You know, I just had a similar conversation, or lack of one, with your dad. He couldn't find the words he wanted either. But I think you know what he wanted me to tell you. And I'm sure he'll know what you mean too." He reached out and placed a hand lightly on his friend's arm. "Get some sleep, Steve," he said. "I'll talk to Mark and start looking for this kid."

"Thanks, Jess," Steve said, grateful for his friend's help and support, reluctantly trying to resign himself to his enforced inactivity. Jesse smiled at him understandingly and left.


	13. Chapter 13

Jesse pulled into the parking lot of the regional high school where Clear Valley sent its students feeling frustrated. His first attempt to get school yearbooks to bring to Mark in the hopes of getting him to identify the boy from the cabin had not met with success. Mark had been unspecific about the exact age of the boy, and Jesse knew that adolescent boys varied widely in their appearance as they approached their teens. Mark had said the boy was 'no older than 15 or 16'; such a description could easily fit a boy as young as 12 or 13. So Jesse had started with the local middle school, hoping to get the yearbooks that would show the 7th and 8th graders for the last couple of years. However, the principal at the school had been extremely uncooperative, declaring that there was no way any of the children in her school would be involved in drugs, that Clear Valley had no drug problem; therefore, none of her children could be involved in such a thing and she wouldn't have a bunch of outsiders from the city pestering them and insinuating otherwise. Jesse had tried to smooth her ruffled feathers, but unfortunately, Clear Valley was a small town, so the tale of the shooting was already rife in the community, and obviously this woman was not about to be sympathetic to a 'big city hotshot doctor who thought he could bring his drugs and problems here'.

So now Jesse was trying the regional high school, and he desperately hoped that he wouldn't meet the same stubborn resistance here. As he walked toward the door of the building, he was surprised to hear his name called.

"Dr. Travis?"

Turning, Jesse saw a young woman in her early to mid twenties approaching. He stopped and looked at her questioningly, as she caught up to him.

"Hi. I'm Lisa Milton," the young woman said. "I'm a student nurse at Clear Valley Community Hospital; I've seen you around at the hospital. I just wanted to say how glad I am that your friend's doing better."

"Thanks," Jesse said, smiling at her, grateful for the sight of a friendly face after the hostility he'd confronted at the middle school.

"We've all felt so badly for you and your friend," Lisa continued sympathetically. "I can't imagine how awful it must be to have your own father shoot you."

Jesse's feelings of friendliness abruptly evaporated. "How about thinking about how awful it is for Mark to have shot his son," he snapped. He saw Lisa look taken aback and a bit hurt, and realized that she had only been trying to be nice; after all, she only knew what the gossip mill was passing around. "Look, I'm sorry," he said, more calmly. "It's just that I'm getting pretty tired of people assuming that Mark's some kind of monster who deliberately tried to hurt his son, when the truth is that there's nothing in this world more important to him than Steve and this whole thing is tearing him apart."

"I'm sorry," Lisa said apologetically. "It's just… they said he admitted he was on drugs…"

"Mark does not take drugs," Jesse declared firmly. "He was given those drugs by a boy who broke into the cabin and slipped them into his drink when Mark tried to help him."

"What boy?" asked Lisa in confusion.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Jesse replied. "Mark said the kid said his name was Skylar, but apparently there's no teenager around here with that name. That's why I came out to the high school. I'm trying to get hold of some recent yearbooks to see if Mark can recognize any of the pictures." He paused ruefully. "I just hope I have better luck here than I did back at the middle school."

"What happened at the middle school?"

"The principal basically threw me out," Jesse said. "She's one of the ones who's made up her mind that Mark is some kind of junkie monster and refused to consider that any of the kids in her school could possibly have anything to do with drugs."

Lisa grinned unexpectedly. "That sounds like Mrs. Martin. She's been principal at the middle school ever since I was a little kid, and she never did have a clue what was really going on. We don't really have much a drug problem here in Clear Valley, but it's ridiculous to say that none of the kids have ever tried any or have no access to them." She gazed thoughtfully at Jesse, obviously weighing up her impressions of him and considering the possibilities.

"You really think some kid slipped your friend some drugs without him knowing about it?" she asked.

"I'm sure of it," avowed Jesse positively. "I've known Mark and Steve for a long time, and there's just no way on earth that Mark could ever hurt Steve. Hell, you can ask Steve; he's more sure of it than anyone."

"They said he had traumatic amnesia," Lisa replied in surprise.

"He does. But he knows better than anybody how Mark feels about him and that the only way this could have happened is if somebody drugged him. In fact, one of the reasons I'm out here now is that if I wasn't, Steve would be."

"He's not going to be in any shape to go anywhere for a while," observed Lisa.

"Yeah, well, you don't know Steve," Jesse retorted. "He's not very good at sitting around and listening to doctor's orders when his dad's in trouble. And he knows what this has to be doing to Mark, and he really hates the thought of him being in prison. The only way I was able to keep him from dragging himself out of that bed as soon as he found out that Mark had been arrested was by promising to come out and do everything possible to find this kid."

"I tell you what," said Lisa, making up her mind. "Why don't you come over to our house with my brother and me; I was just coming here to pick him up. Scott's a junior, and he's got the high school yearbooks from the last two years; and we can get the most recent middle school yearbooks from one of our neighbors. And maybe Scott can help you figure out who this kid might be. He knows a lot of the Clear Valley kids at school; maybe he'll be able to at least narrow down the possibilities."

"That would be great," Jesse assented fervently. "I really appreciate it."

"No problem," Lisa replied with a smile. "In fact, why don't you plan on staying for dinner; you have to be getting sick of the hospital food, and that way we'll have plenty of time to go over the yearbooks and talk with Scott."

"Are you sure that'd be okay?" Jesse asked in pleased surprise. "I don't want to put you out or anything…"

"Well, it's my Mom who'll be cooking," replied Lisa with a mischievous smile. "I've been living with them while I finish my nursing degree. But she always makes enough to feed about three extra people anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem."

Jesse grinned back, appreciating the feeling of having a friend and ally in this hitherto suspicious or downright hostile town – especially such a young and lovely ally. However, it occurred to him that he had one more task he needed to accomplish while it was still light.

"Look, I'd really love to have dinner at your place, but I need to go up to the cabin to look around again before it gets dark. What time do you eat?"

"We usually eat around 5:30," Lisa replied. "Why don't you go up to the cabin now, and you can come over to our house when you're done."

"That sounds great," Jesse said gratefully. Lisa gave him directions on how to get to her parents' house, and Jesse headed back to his car, feeling much more optimistic than he had when he arrived. Finding out who might be involved with drugs or who had a brother who had recently died of an overdose should be a lot easier now that he had a local kid to talk to. He headed up to the cabin with renewed determination.

When he got to the Harley cabin, Jesse took out a camera he had picked up in town. He wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for, but he knew that Steve was feeling frustrated that he couldn't come out here and look around for himself. So, he figured the next best thing would be to take pictures of everything and bring them to Steve. Maybe something would spark a memory or indicate a lead.

He worked his way carefully through the cabin, taking the time to notice more details than he had the day he had come to pick up some clean clothes for Mark. He carefully snapped shots of the interior of each of the rooms, including close-ups of the open drawers he found, presumably places that Skylar had ransacked. He examined the desk drawer where Mark had said Skylar had found the gun, and noticed that there were scratches and some slight splintering around the lock area. Obviously, the teen had forced the drawer open, looking for valuables or a weapon. One more reason not to keep a weapon lying around the house, Jesse thought grimly. He tried to keep himself from dwelling wistfully on the thought that if Walter hadn't kept the gun and ammunition there, this whole disaster would never have happened. He carefully snapped a close-up of the drawer.

Moving into the kitchen, he noticed that there was a soup bowl in the drainboard next to the sink. Of course, he thought, why didn't I notice that before? That's why there was only one bowl outside – Mark must have brought his in when he came back to get the lemonade. He carefully took a picture of that as well.

Once he had finished with the inside, Jesse took the camera out back and checked out the patio area. He took a few shots of the soup bowl overturned on the ground, its contents obviously long since licked clean by animals. For good measure, he took a few shots of the surrounding area as well, discovering a partially gnawed paper plate stuck in a nearby bush. As a final thought, he went up the path to the clearing above the lake where Steve had been found, and finished up the roll of film there. He snapped pictures of the area where the traces of blood on the ground still indicated where Steve had been shot. Moving to the spot marked by the disturbance in the brush that he figured was where Mark had fallen, he took the last few shots of that as well. His film used up, he glanced at his watch and decided that he'd better head back to town if he wanted to be on time for dinner at the Miltons'.

Jesse presented himself at the Miltons' shortly before 5:30, bearing a couple of gallons of ice cream he had picked up at a local ice cream parlor in town on his way. He was greeted warmly by Lisa and introduced to her parents and brother, all of whom seemed as genuine and friendly as Lisa herself. Conversation was general over dinner, consisting of the usual small talk and exchanges of information common to people just getting to know each other. But once the dishes had been cleared, and Jesse had, with complete sincerity, complimented Mrs. Milton on the delicious dinner, he, Lisa, and Scott repaired to the living room to talk about possibilities of who could have been the teen who broke into the Harley cabin.

As Scott went to get the yearbooks, including a couple of middle school ones they had already borrowed from one of their neighbors, Lisa asked Jesse to tell her the whole story of what had presumably occurred between Mark and Steve. Jesse was not surprised when she was taken aback by, and somewhat skeptical of, Mark's claim to have ignored the gun Skylar was holding and to have talked the teen into giving him the weapon. So Jesse found himself telling Lisa about Mark and his investigative experiences and his relationship with Steve, as well as Jesse's own experiences and relationship with them both. By the time he was done, both Lisa and Scott were expressing a strong desire to meet both Sloans. Jesse pulled himself out of the unexpectedly pleasant reminiscing mode, and promised to introduce them as soon as this mess was straightened out.

"So, Scott, what can you tell me about anybody who might be the kid Mark met at the cabin?" Jesse asked the teenager.

"Well, I don't really know the kids that are doing the drug scene that well," Scott said. "There are a couple of seniors that like to think they're pretty bad stuff, but I'm not so sure they're really as into it as they'd like you to think."

"Well, it's a start," Jesse suggested, reflecting that the boy he was looking for was unlikely to be a senior; it was true that adolescents varied enormously in appearance and development, but Mark was very observant and pretty good at estimating ages. Although, given the state he'd been in since the shooting, it was possible that his usual acumen was somewhat clouded.

"Well, there's Tommy Caymen; he's been strutting around lately and throwing off hints about getting in with something really big." Scott's tone spoke clearly of his skepticism about the likelihood of Tommy being involved in anything 'big'. "He doesn't have any brothers, though; he's an only child. Then there's John Morton; he's been known to do a few drugs. And Nick Dempsey…" Scott listed a few other names, but was unaware of any of them having an older brother who had recently died.

"You might talk to one of the guidance counselors at the school," suggested Lisa. "They might be able to tell you if one of the kids had a brother who died recently."

"That's a good idea," replied Jesse. "If I can get them to talk to me. I didn't have much luck at the middle school."

"Oh that's just Mrs. Martin," said Scott dismissively, with a teenager's scorn for the self-delusions of adult bureaucracy. "She's totally clueless, everyone knows that. The counselors at the high school are a bit more with it."

"Actually, one of the guidance counselors at the high school, Rachel Cameron, is a friend of mine," said Lisa. "I can give her a call and explain the circumstances, and I'm sure she'll talk to you."

"Thanks a lot," Jesse said. "You guys are really being a big help. I really appreciate it."

"No sweat," replied Scott. "In fact, I can mark the yearbook pages with some of the more likely possibilities on them, so your friend can concentrate on them first."

"That'd be great," Jesse responded.

As Scott turned over the corners of some of the pages, including several of some of the younger students, Jesse continued to converse with Lisa.

"So where are you staying?" Lisa asked him.

"I hadn't really thought about it," Jesse said, realizing for the first time that circumstances had changed. "Up 'til now, I've just been staying with Steve; I promised Mark I wouldn't leave him while his condition was so uncertain, but I guess he really doesn't need me there any more." He grinned slightly, anticipating Steve's reaction if he were to find Jesse still camped out in the chair beside his bed all night. He had to admit that the thought of sleeping in a real bed again sounded incredibly good. "I guess I'll get a hotel room for the duration. Got any suggestions?"

"Well, there's a motel just outside of town on the way to the hospital," Lisa said doubtfully. "Or you could just stay here for tonight."

Jesse considered that very tempting offer, but decided, reluctantly, to decline. He still wanted to go back to the hospital tonight to check on Steve, and he wanted to be up and out very early in the morning. He wanted to talk to the guidance counselor at the school first thing and still have time to get out to see Mark and get back to the hospital to report to Steve before his friend got too nervous about what was going on and tried leaving on his own. So he thanked Lisa and her family with sincere gratitude for their kindness and assistance, and left.

On his way to the hospital, he checked in at the motel and secured a room. Tossing his suitcase onto the bed, he turned around and headed back out to continue on to the hospital. He was extremely pleased to find that Steve had been moved out of the ICU into a regular room. He went down to the room and found that Steve was asleep. He did a quick check of his friend's bedside chart, then stopped off at the nurse's station to get an update on his status. Reassured to find that Steve's condition was continuing to show satisfactory improvement, he returned to the motel feeling that he had done a reasonable job of fulfilling his promises to both his friends. With Steve on the mend, and a few leads to the identity of the teen who had been at the cabin, things were starting to look a bit more hopeful. Tomorrow he could reassure Mark about Steve's progress and his undiminished faith and love for his father and could bring Steve some concrete evidence of progress in the effort to get Mark released. Jesse climbed wearily into bed, and was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.


	14. Chapter 14

Mark Sloan moved dully through the prisoners' morning routine. The apathy that had overwhelmed him since Jesse had brought the news of Steve's survival had only worsened with the passage of time. The assurance of Steve's recovery and the relief of the terror that he had killed his son had released the tension that had been consuming him, leaving him totally drained of emotional or physical energy. He no longer had any sense of focus or purpose; there remained only a deadening emptiness, painfully laced with a corrosive guilt.

In the darkness of his heart, there seemed to be nothing left to sustain him. Unlike the time he had been framed by the Trainors, there was now no intellectual challenge to occupy his mind in figuring out how to prove his innocence. Even worse was the fact that, in his own mind, he was not innocent but guilty of an act that no circumstances could ever justify. There was no puzzle to solve, no truth to prove; he had, with his own hand, grievously injured his son and destroyed forever the trust between them.

Mired in the depths of depression, he was unable to view the events surrounding the shooting with any objectivity; he saw only that he had critically injured the person whom he most loved. Even if his son could forgive him - and some part of him knew, even yet, that Steve would forgive him - he could never forgive himself. It was a father's responsibility to love and protect his children, and it seemed to Mark that he had signally failed in that responsibility. He had failed to save his daughter, and now he had almost killed his son. He wondered how he could ever look Steve in the face again. Always, in the past, when he had looked at his son, he had known that there was love and pride in the eyes that met his, had felt the almost physical sense of connectedness that allowed an easy, wordless communication to flow between them. How could he face having that affection and easy interaction replaced by a sense of disappointment and distance?

It was in this state of hopelessness that Mark listlessly followed the other prisoners out of the dining area after breakfast, scarcely noticing anything around him, just waiting for the chance to return to the relative solitude of his cell. On the way back toward the cell block, however, he stumbled into another inmate, causing the man to bump painfully into the wall. Mark automatically mumbled an apology, but suddenly found the prisoner, a hard-looking man in his mid-forties, who was two inches taller and substantially heftier than himself, looming in front of him, blocking the way.

"Hey, who you jostlin', Pops?" the man demanded, thrusting both hands at Mark's chest and shoving. Taken by surprise, Mark stumbled backward, almost falling. Casting a quick glance around to see that no one else was near, the man grinned evilly. The next thing Mark knew, the man had slammed him into the wall and was holding him erect with one arm across his throat. "I think you need to learn a little lesson here."

Mark stared dazedly into the face before him, vaguely wondering why he didn't feel more afraid. His normally quick wits and facile tongue seemed to have totally deserted him. Somehow, he couldn't seem to muster enough energy to really care what happened to him. He felt a rib crack under the two quick powerful blows that were aimed at his midriff. He heard a guard shout from the end of the hallway, and his assailant abruptly let go of him and took off. As Mark sank to the ground, clutching his rib cage, the hallway spinning darkly around him, he was conscious of a feeling almost of disappointment that the guard had arrived so quickly. The thought flitted briefly through his mind that if the guard had arrived just a few moments later, the prisoner might have broken the rib and punctured the lung - in which case he might never have had to face his son and see the discomfort and awkwardness that he feared would have replaced the usual trust and affection in Steve's eyes.


	15. Chapter 15

Jesse was at the high school bright and early, seated in front of a young woman apparently a few years older than Lisa Milton.

"Lisa called me last night to tell me that you'd be coming by this morning," Rachel Cameron said. "She told me about your friend, and the story he told about a boy whose brother had recently died of an overdose."

"That's right," Jesse confirmed. "We're trying to find him so we can prove that Mark didn't take those drugs voluntarily, and isn't responsible for shooting Steve."

"If the boy didn't give his real name, what makes you think the rest of his story was true?" asked Rachel.

Jesse considered that carefully, hoping that this woman wasn't going to be another skeptic unwilling to believe that any of the kids in her school could be involved in this.

"Mark said the boy was really broken up about his brother's death," Jesse replied.

"He could just have been putting on an act to get your friend's sympathy," suggested the counselor.

"Maybe. But Mark isn't easy to deceive; he's got a lot of experience with people and knowing when they're hiding things or lying. And at least it gives us a starting point to try to narrow down the search some."

"Of course, you realize that we really aren't supposed to give out confidential information on our students and their families," the guidance counselor continued.

"Look," said Jesse, fighting off the frustration that was starting to well up in him, "I'm not out to bother any innocent kids. I don't want to accuse anybody of anything or make trouble for any of the families. I'll keep anything you can tell me perfectly confidential. But a very good friend of mine is in jail for something that he would never have done – something that's hurting him far worse than the jail sentence itself – because some kid broke into a cabin, tried to steal a gun, and slipped drugs into his drink. And there are two very good people whose lives are going to be ruined by this if we don't find this kid and get him to tell us what really happened."

"Two people?" queried Rachel.

"Two. If Mark is convicted of this, it's going to tear Steve apart as well as Mark; in fact, it already is. I'm already having trouble keeping him in the hospital long enough to recuperate; he wants to be out trying to clear his dad himself."

Rachel Cameron gazed thoughtfully at him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Lisa seems to have formed a very good opinion of you, and is inclined to believe that we should provide any information we can." She grinned suddenly, making her look younger and much friendlier. "And I've usually found that Lisa's a very good judge of character. Although not exactly a 'by the book' type of person."

"She and Mark should get along great," said Jesse, smiling back.

"Okay, so let's see what we've got." Rachel turned to her computer screen and starting pulling up student records. "There've been a couple of students who have had recent deaths or illnesses in the family. Let's see who lives in or near Clear Valley."

They spent the next few minutes with Rachel pulling up the files of any of the kids she personally knew had had some type of recent family tragedy. When she was done, she handed Jesse a list of about 5 boys, with their ages and addresses.

"I hope this helps," she said as Jesse took the list.

"Me too," he replied. "I really appreciate your help. And I promise I'll be as discreet as possible and try not to upset anybody who's not involved." He then took his leave and headed out to drive up to the regional prison to see Mark.

Jesse arrived at the prison during the mid-morning visitation hours, and was again taken to an interview room to see Mark. As he walked through the gray, depressing corridor, he found himself hoping that the relief of knowing that Steve was going to be okay would have helped restore some of Mark's normally indomitable spirit. He had been extremely worried by the state in which he had found the older doctor when he had come to see him the previous day, much more so than he had wanted to let on to Steve. While he knew that Mark would probably still be deeply distressed by the events of the week, he really hoped that he would have recovered some of his natural equilibrium.

As he entered the interview room, he felt those hopes start to fade as he saw the figure sitting listlessly at the table. Then Mark looked up at him, and he saw a flash of life spark in the eyes that searched his face, even as the figure tensed.

"Jesse? How's Steve? Is he alright?" Mark asked hoarsely.

"He's doing great, Mark," Jesse hastened to assure him. "They've moved him out of the ICU and taken him off the monitors. He's going to be absolutely fine." He saw the tension dissipate, his friend's body sagging slightly, as Mark's anxiety was allayed. He sat down next to him, scanning his face, his dismay returning as he noted the increasingly gray and drawn look, the dull pain that still filled Mark's eyes. As he searched for something further to offer in the way of comfort, those eyes lifted again to his.

"Have you talked to him yet?" Mark asked. He struggled with conflicting emotions as he awaited the response – needing to know what Steve had said about the shooting, dreading to hear of his reaction to his father's betrayal.

Thinking that his friend looked like he was waiting for a knife to be plunged into his heart, Jesse wished desperately that he didn't have to tell Mark about Steve's inability to remember the events surrounding the shooting. He tried to think of a gentle way to break the news.

"He said it's not your fault, Mark," Jesse told him. "He knows you would never deliberately hurt him."

Mark closed his eyes for a moment, trying to control his emotions. He found he had a hard time accepting the comfort this response offered. What else could Steve say? Would he admit to his friend how deeply it must have hurt to have been betrayed by the man he most trusted?

"Did he tell you exactly what happened?" Mark asked, probing further into the source of his pain.

Jesse bit his lip. There was no way around it now; he couldn't lie to Mark about this.

"He doesn't actually remember the details," he replied reluctantly. He saw the tension return to Mark's posture. "He seems to have some temporary memory loss surrounding the actual shooting." Seeing the expression of pain that crossed Mark's face, he hastened to add, "I'm sure it's just temporary. There's no sign of any physical problem, and you know it's not uncommon after an injury like this for it to take a few days for the memory of the incident to come back."

"Traumatic shock," confirmed Mark dully, his voice still hoarse. He looked up with a wry twist to his mouth, the pain in his eyes more apparent. "I imagine being shot by your father counts as a fairly traumatic event."

"Mark, you know the term applies to physical trauma, not necessarily emotional trauma," Jesse responded firmly. As Mark failed to respond, swallowing with apparent discomfort, it suddenly occurred to him that the hoarseness in his friend's voice had not cleared up after the initial anxious inquiry about Steve. He looked the older man over searchingly as he asked, "Mark, what's wrong with your voice?"

"I'm alright," Mark replied evasively, unconsciously withdrawing further back into his chair. Jesse noticed that he winced as he did so, his hand moving to his midsection.

"Mark, something's wrong – what is it? Are you sick?" Jesse asked worriedly, getting up to move closer to his friend. Mark tried to turn to avoid his approach, and as he did, Jesse caught sight of the discoloration on the front of his neck. He reached out and pulled the neck of the prison shirt away from Mark's throat, displaying a deep bruise.

"What happened?" he asked in alarm.

"It's all right, Jesse," Mark muttered, not meeting his eyes. "It's nothing to worry about. I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Jesse declared unequivocally, his hand suddenly reaching out to feel Mark's chest. He saw Mark flinch from the touch, and he recognized the feel of the bandaging around the ribs. "Come on, Mark, talk to me," he urged in deep concern. "What happened, and how badly are you hurt?"

"It wasn't that big a deal," Mark said, reluctantly surrendering to his friend's insistence. "I had a misunderstanding with another inmate. There was no major damage done."

Jesse surveyed him appraisingly, reflecting that the damage to the throat couldn't have been too bad or they wouldn't be having this conversation. As for the ribs… "Are they broken?" he asked, gently feeling along his friend's chest.

Mark shook his head. "Just one cracked rib."

"What else? Did they at least have a doctor look at you?"

"They brought me to the infirmary. There's nothing else, Jesse. I told you – I'm fine." His voice was flat and uninterested.

Jesse scrutinized his friend's face. Far from being reassured by the lack of concern, he was, in fact, deeply disturbed. Mark was obviously far from fine. Setting aside the physical damage, the tone of complete disinterest in his injuries was setting off a whole cacophony of alarm bells in Jesse's mind. This wasn't just a reluctance to worry a concerned friend; Mark genuinely didn't seem to care what had happened to him. And that, Jesse knew, was a very bad sign.

"We need to work on getting you out of here," he declared abruptly. He slid the yearbooks he had brought closer to Mark. "I brought some yearbooks from the local schools. I want you to take a look at the pictures and see if you can pick out 'Skylar'."

Mark gazed at the books unenthusiastically. "What makes you think he'll even be in there?" he asked. "We don't even know if he lives in Clear Valley."

Jesse's alarm was deepening. This was definitely not like Mark; he had to find something to snap him out of this uncharacteristic lethargy. Searching for something that might get through to him, Jesse remembered the spark that had temporarily animated his friend as he had asked about Steve. Well, obviously, Jesse thought. Steve is the one thing he still cares about; that's why he's so depressed in the first place. He decided to try to use that edge to get Mark back on track.

"Look, Mark," Jesse said firmly, "we need to start somewhere, and this is the best shot we've got. We need to get you out of here to see Steve, and to do that, we need to find this kid so he can corroborate your story." He saw Mark close his eyes momentarily, and tried again. "You do want to see Steve, don't you?" he asked steadily.

Mark lifted his head then, and Jesse winced internally at the combination of pain and hesitancy in his eyes. He held Mark's gaze, trying to project conviction and reassurance in his own.

"Mark, Steve needs to see you as badly as you need to see him," he said with quiet intensity. "He wanted me to tell you that it's alright; he doesn't blame you, Mark. His biggest concern right now is getting you out of here. The best thing we can do for both of you is to get this cleared up as soon as possible." He saw uncertainty flicker in his friend's eyes, and pushed a little harder. "Come on, Mark," he urged. "You've got to fight this – for Steve's sake if not for your own."

Mark closed his eyes and lowered his head to hide the moisture that was stinging them. He didn't want Steve to worry about him; he had caused his son enough pain already. And Jesse was right. No matter how betrayed Steve might feel, no matter how his feelings about his father might have changed, he would feel compelled to do everything he could to uncover the whole story and see Mark released. Mark remembered with painful clarity the time he had been framed and convicted of murder while his son lay in a coma, fighting for his life. Once he had awakened, Steve had pushed himself against medical advice, getting back on the streets before he was properly healed to search for evidence to prove his father innocent of the charges. Mark didn't want to be responsible for him doing that again. Especially since he was already responsible for almost killing him in the first place. He owed it to his son to do what he could to take the burden off Steve's shoulders. So he tried to pull himself together, taking a deep, ragged breath, and opening the first yearbook.

Jesse watched as Mark turned his attention to the yearbook, pleased to see a faint, but perceptible flicker of determination in those uncharacteristically dull blue eyes. He wasn't naive enough to think that he had magically solved the problem, but at least he had given his friend a temporary infusion of incentive to fight the incipient depression to which he was so obviously succumbing. Now, if they could just identify this kid, and if he could find the boy and convince him to corroborate Mark's story, perhaps they could get Mark out of here before any more permanent damage was done.

He pulled out the list that Rachel Cameron had given him of boys who had recently lost siblings, and he and Mark were just starting to check them out when he heard a rap at the door, and a guard entered to announce that it was time to leave.

"Just give me one more minute," Jesse uttered desperately, hating to leave before Mark had a chance to check out at least the more promising possibilities. He was afraid that, left on his own, Mark would sink back into his depression and fail to really try to identify 'Skylar'. The guard hesitated for a moment, and as Jesse looked pleadingly at him, he heard Mark call out, "Here! This is him!"

Jesse looked quickly down at the picture to which Mark was pointing. He saw a photo of a dark-haired sophomore with the name 'Robert Phillips' under the picture.

"Are you sure?" he asked Mark.

"I'm sure." The tone of Mark's voice was reassuringly certain, the feeling of having accomplished something positive temporarily breaking through the lethargy.

"Great," Jesse said, his spirits momentarily lifting. As the guard moved to usher him out, however, he looked back at his friend, hating to leave him, knowing that he would, in all probability, sink back into depression after he was gone. Already the brief flash of animation in Mark's face was fading, the blankness of a dull misery returning.

"I'll be back, Mark," he promised. "We'll find this kid, and we'll get him to tell the truth. Just hang in there." Then the guard had hustled him out the door and closed it behind him.

Before leaving the prison, Jesse stopped at the warden's office to get the details on what had happened to Mark. He was relieved to hear that the 'altercation' with another prisoner had been brief, that it was only a matter of a minute or two before a guard had arrived to break it up. They had examined Mark and found that his injuries were limited to the bruised throat and cracked rib. Bad enough, Jesse reflected grimly, hating to think of his friend being the target of such an attack. What Steve would do if he found out, he hated to think; much as he hated to keep anything from his friend, it would probably be better if he refrained from mentioning the incident.

As he walked out to his car to drive back to town, Jesse felt torn between hope at having identified the teen from the cabin and a deep dismay over Mark's state of mind. In all the years that he had known Mark, through all the disasters that had befallen him, he had never seen his friend like this. Mark – who never gave up, who had maintained his dignity and determination through four months on death row, who had refused to be beaten by the Sweeneys even though it cost him his reputation, his job, and his medical license – Mark was sinking into a depression that was obviously sapping his will and spirit. Jesse had come to think that the elder Sloan could survive anything; but the guilt and self-recrimination of having almost killed his son might well be the one thing that could break him. Jesse drove away from the prison with an urgent sense that if they didn't find this kid and persuade him to come forward with the truth very soon, it might well be too late to matter.


	16. Chapter 16

"You're too late, Sloan…" The mocking words echoed in his head, as Steve jerked violently awake, drenched with sweat, the sound of his racing heart pounding hard and fast in his ears. Nightmare, he thought, as he realized he was still lying in the unfamiliar hospital room, it was just a nightmare. He lay still for a few minutes, struggling to get his breathing and heart rate back under control. The too-vivid images of the dream were already starting to fade, thankfully, but the emotional horror remained. He'd had this nightmare, or something very similar, before, although it had been a long time since the last one. The dream varied in detail, but it always revolved around his father's conviction for murder when he had been framed by the Trainors. In its worst forms – and this had been one of them – he not only relived the heart-breaking moment when the judge had pronounced the death sentence on his father, but he failed to prove Mark's innocence in time, and he had to endure the agony of watching his father's execution. This time, in his dream, he knew he had evidence that would free his father, but when he arrived at the courthouse to present it, he found that Mark had already been taken to the execution chamber. He had rushed to the prison, only to be forced to watch in helpless anguish as his father was strapped in and prepared for the lethal injection. He had seen the fear and desperate appeal that Mark couldn't quite hide as he faced his imminent death, and heard Malcolm Trainor's mocking voice taunting him with his failure to save his father, as he had struggled frantically, but unsuccessfully, to halt the execution.

Steve concentrated on taking long, slow breaths to calm himself. It's a good thing I'm not still attached to the monitors, he thought to himself with grim humor, or I'd be setting off alarm bells all over the place. As his racing pulse gradually slowed, he cursed his current helplessness that he knew had triggered the nightmare of that previous, horrific time when he had lived with the gut-wrenching fear that he would be unable to save his father. The sense of failure, of letting his father down in his time of greatest need, lingered, compounding his aching frustration with being tied to this damn bed while Mark rotted in prison. His mouth compressed into a tight, grim line, Steve fought the desperate need to get out and do something to bring this current nightmare to an end. He knew that, unless there was some sign of progress in the attempt to clear Mark soon, he was going to lose that fight. He hoped that Jesse would turn up with some good news before too long.

 

Jesse hesitated before entering Steve's room, taking a moment to compose himself. He realized that, if he was going to have any chance of keeping Steve in this hospital, he had to put as positive a spin as possible on the events of the last 24 hours. Drawing a deep breath, he walked in, announcing as cheerfully as he could, "Good news, we've got an ID for the kid at the cabin!"

Steve turned instantly, his eyes intently scanning his friend's face.

"Great. What did Dad say?" he asked, the tension in him palpable. Jesse surveyed him as unobtrusively as he could, dismayed to notice that his friend obviously wasn't dealing very well with his enforced inaction. He got the distinct impression that he had been correct in his assumption that if he hadn't shown up with some definite information, Steve would have been on his way out the door already.

Jesse chose his words with care. "He identified one of the pictures in the high school yearbook as the boy who drugged him. His name's Bobby Phillips."

"Okay, so where is he? Have you talked to him yet? Did you have the sheriff see if he could corroborate Dad's story?" The torrent of questions poured forth with a decided edge.

"Well, I haven't exactly had a chance to talk to him yet," Jesse started to explain. However, he was interrupted before he got any further.

"Why not?" demanded Steve angrily. "We've got to get his story if we're going to get Dad out of jail. What've you been doing all this time?"

"Wait a minute," Jesse exclaimed defensively, his own temper shortened by the pressure and anxiety he'd been experiencing. "I've just got back from talking to Mark! I haven't had a chance to see this kid yet – he's not even out of school yet! Besides, I sort of figured you'd want to know what was going on, so I thought I'd stop here first. Maybe you'd rather I'd just stayed away?"

Steve's flare of temper died abruptly.

"I'm sorry, Jess," he apologized. "I'm just so worried about Dad and frustrated with being stuck in here."

"I know," Jesse interjected, already regretting his own angry words. "I'm worried about him too."

"How is he?" Steve asked, the depth of his concern reflected in the sudden vulnerability in his face.

Jesse walked toward the window, knowing that he would have a better chance of prevaricating if Steve were unable to see his face too closely. He could almost feel Steve's gaze following him intently.

"Well, he's not too happy," he admitted with deliberate understatement, "but I think it helped that he was able to identify the boy."

Steve scrutinized as much as he could see of his friend's face, noting the fact that Jesse was having a hard time meeting his eyes. He felt himself tense again, his always-sensitive instincts regarding his father's well-being honing in on the slight hesitation and the careful wording of the response.

"That's not telling me much, Jess," he prodded suspiciously. "Was he able to tell you any more than he did last time? Now that he knows I'm going to be okay, is he coping any better?"

Jesse struggled to find the words to answer Steve's questions without unduly alarming him, but his reluctance to be forthcoming was increasingly obvious, and Steve was not prepared to accept anything but the truth.

"Jesse," he urged, his voice soft, but compelling. "Please. I have to know." His eyes held his friend's, making further evasion impossible. Jesse capitulated, his concern, once released, flowing forth in a rush.

"How do you think he is, Steve?" he asked, his frustration with the whole situation getting the better of him. "You know how he feels about you. You mean the world to him, and now he thinks he shot you." He started to pace up and down the room, struggling to find the words to accurately convey Mark's state of mind. "I've never seen him like this. Your dad is always so together, you know? He always manages to keep things in perspective. When the Sweeneys blew up the hospital, I know he blamed himself, but he always managed to keep in mind that, although he was the reason Community General was targeted, it was still the Sweeneys who were to blame. He always kept his focus on the goal of stopping them. But now, he has nothing to do but sit in that jail cell and think about how he hurt you. I never thought I would apply this word to Mark, but he's really depressed. We're talking a serious clinical depression here."

Jesse paused, assessing the impact of his news on Steve by the grim set of his jaw and the tightness around his eyes, and instantly regretted his honesty. Even as he watched, he could see the resolve start to form, and he moved quickly to intervene before it solidified.

"At this point, the worst thing you could do is to show up at the jail," Jesse warned, anticipating Steve's instinctive response. "We've already been through this; it's only going to make things worse for Mark if he feels responsible for you risking your life by leaving the hospital too soon."

Steve clamped his jaw shut, trying to contain the mounting frustration that was rapidly reaching explosive proportions. The thought of the anguish his father was experiencing was breaking his heart. He knew how much Mark hated parading his own grief and pain; he always managed to maintain a reasonable degree of composure in front of other people, even his closest friends. Even to his son, during those heartwrenching prison visits when he had been languishing on death row, he had put up a good front of remaining hopeful and focussed on resolving the situation. To sit by helplessly while his father endured a degree of anguish severe enough to break down his usual reserve and resilience was more than Steve could stand.

"I've got to do something," he insisted. "I can't just sit here and do nothing!"

Jesse pulled out the photographs he had had developed overnight, and held them out to his friend.

"Here; take a look at these," he suggested. "I figured since you couldn't go to the scene, I'd bring the scene to you."

Steve eagerly seized the pictures, but paused for a moment, looking back up at his friend. "You know, Jess," he said, "Dad and I don't tell you often enough how much we appreciate your help. Thanks for helping us through this one."

Jesse smiled at him. "Hey, we're practically family. In fact, you guys taught me what family means, so don't worry about it. I'm happy to do anything I can to help."

Steve nodded, and returned his attention to the pictures, thumbing through the pile, examining them carefully. He paused over the shots of the dishware scattered around the picnic table, and suddenly had a vivid flashback of the same scene, the day he returned from the trial.

"What is it?" Jesse asked in alarm at his friend's sudden immobility. From his position next to the bed, he was unable to see which photograph has provoked this reaction.

"There's something wrong here," Steve said slowly, still perusing the series of pictures intently. "I've got it! When I came back that afternoon, I remember wondering who had been eating with Dad. There were two plates on the table, one with an unfinished sandwich, but there was only one glass and one bowl."

"I found the other bowl in the kitchen," Jesse told him, pulling out the picture he had taken of the drainboard. "Mark must have brought it in and rinsed it out when he went back in the cabin for the lemonade. And I found one of the plates stuck in a bush." He pointed out that picture as well.

"That accounts for both bowls," Steve commented, "and it's possible that the other plate just blew away. But there's still only one glass that I can see." He looked up at Jesse, a triumphant gleam in his eye. "I'd bet you anything the drug was in the missing glass; that's why they couldn't find any trace of narcotics at the scene. If we can find it, it would go a long way towards clearing Dad."

He continued to study the photographs, feeling a new energy and determination. As he stared at a picture of the clearing, he experienced another flashback, this time of his father standing there holding a gun, and felt an instant of fear; but he knew instinctively it was for his father not for himself.

Lastly, he looked at the picture Jesse had taken down the hill where Mark had fallen.

"I'm glad Dad wasn't hurt any worse," he observed, as he noted the steepness and rockiness of the slope.

"No, luckily the rib was just cracked, it could have been a lot worse," Jesse answered absently, his mind elsewhere. He didn't realize his mistake until Steve jumped on that last comment furiously.

"What cracked rib? Damn it, Jesse, you didn't tell me he was hurt. How dare you keep that kind of information from me?"

Unused to having Steve so angry with him, Jesse reacted instinctively, a guilty blush creeping up his face.

"I only found out this morning." He realized at once it was the wrong thing to say. Steve's expression grew more thunderous, and, almost involuntarily, Jesse found himself explaining.

"He said there was some kind of altercation with another prisoner. He wasn't badly hurt…"

"What kind of 'altercation'?" Steve demanded in a voice tightened by the sudden anxiety and dread that gripped him.

"He got punched by one of the prisoners; it only lasted a minute before the guard broke it up," Jesse explained hastily, trying to offer reassurance against the fear he saw in his friend's eyes. "The cracked rib and a bruised throat were the only damage."

Steve's gaze bored into his friend, trying to determine if there was anything more to it that he still hadn't told him. Convinced that Jesse hadn't kept anything else back, he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to control the terror that had washed over him at the thought of what might have happened. He knew all too well what could happen to someone in prison – the types of beatings and assaults, even rapes, that sometimes occurred among the prisoners. The vision of his father being subjected to those horrors was literally more than he could bear. Goaded beyond his endurance, he painfully sat up and swung his legs to the side of the bed, declaring with finality, "That's it."

Jesse was in no doubt as to the meaning of that utterance, but he made one last-ditch attempt to keep his friend in the hospital long enough to recover more fully.

"Steve, we've already gone over this. If you end up back in here undergoing emergency surgery, you're only going to make things worse for your dad."

"So what do you expect me to do, Jess?" Steve demanded harshly. "Wait around until the next time my father is attacked – until someone does more serious, permanent damage? Or until he tears himself apart with guilt and grief over something that's not his fault?" He held Jesse's eyes, his own filled with a hard anger and determination. "Well, I'm not going to do it. I can't. I'm signing myself out now. You can either help me or get out of my way."

"It'll be against medical advice," Jesse tried without much hope, recognizing an immovable force when he saw one. The news of Mark's physical danger, coupled with his emotional state, pushed every protective button Steve had concerning his father, and there was no stopping him now.

"Just give me my clothes, Jess," was the grim response.

Jesse complied, accepting the inevitable, his mind already turning to ways to minimize the risk of further damage. He'd have to pick up a supply of oral antibiotic – they couldn't risk any chance of returning infection. Maybe he could borrow a wheelchair… As he disconnected the IV and helped Steve up, he reflected that it was becoming increasingly difficult to try to juggle the best interests of both his friends at once.


	17. Chapter 17

As Jesse drove up the long dirt road to the cabin, he meticulously avoided all the potholes he could, wincing internally when he hit the occasional bump, and stealing glances at his companion. Although Steve had not displayed any discomfort by utterance or expression, Jesse knew that the jolts must be hurting him. He repressed a sigh, regretting once again that he had let slip information on the double-edged jeopardy facing Mark. He had seen that grim intent on his friend's face before when Mark had been kidnapped by Carter Sweeney and ROAR. At that time, Steve had declared his intention of investigating every single crime that was committed in Los Angeles if that was what it took to find his father. Jesse had no doubt that Steve was just as driven now, and he feared that he would refuse to recognize the physical limitations imposed by his recent injuries and attempt to give the same commitment to his search for a way to free him now.

Jesse tried to keep his surveillance subtle, but at his next sideways look, Steve reacted with some asperity.

"Cut it out, Jess, I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Jesse muttered under his breath; but knowing he was fighting a losing battle, he refrained from disputing Steve's obvious misrepresentation of his health.

Once they arrived at the cabin, Steve eased himself out of his seat with some difficulty. He had agreed, as a compromise, to use a cane for walking. Jesse had wanted him in a wheelchair, but in terms of speed and ease of access, that was too impractical for his current needs. However, he found himself grateful for the support the cane offered as he resisted the temptation to double over to relieve the complaints of his sore abdominal muscles. He had no intention of admitting this to Jesse though.

The nagging pain faded from his consciousness as he stood for a moment staring at the cabin. He remembered his father waving him off as he left for the trial. It seemed like a lifetime ago, a peaceful and happy lifetime. It was hard to believe that, in less than a week, their lives had been so brutally turned upside down.

"Let's check out the patio." He walked stiffly into the cabin and out to the back of the building, following the path he had taken on that fateful day. He paused at the table and sat down casually, trying to make it look like a choice rather than the necessity it was. Jesse wasn't fooled, but chose to let it go.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked, willing to assume the greater part of action to keep Steve resting.

Steve looked around, seeing clearly in his mind's eye the table as it had been set up the day he had come back from the trial.

"That glass has to be around here somewhere. I can't see the kid carting it home with him. Maybe he threw it into the bushes as he left; or it's possible Dad still had it in his hand when he started up the hill. Search around, see what you can find. I know the answers are here somewhere."

Jesse dived into the bushes with enthusiasm, happy to be doing something constructive. Starting near the picnic table, it only took him about 15 minutes to locate the missing glass. Well-versed as he was in police procedures, he didn't touch it, but with a whoop of triumph, he crawled out of the underbrush to inform Steve. But Steve was no longer sitting at the table.

As Steve looked around and allowed himself to relax a little, the familiar surroundings sparked his memory, and the sporadic flashbacks started to coalesce into consistent recall. In his mind, he heard again the initial shot which had alerted him to trouble and, as he had that day, he started up the hill, impelled by the same sense of urgency. He arrived at the top, sweating and bent over, but, lost in the memory of that fateful day, he was unaware of the pain from his abused body. He remembered with painful clarity seeing his father holding the gun to his head and bursting into the clearing in response. A shiver ran through him as he realized how close he had come to losing his father. In his drug-induced high, Mark had been totally unaware of the lethal nature of the weapon he held, and Steve could only too easily imagine the tragedy that might have ensued if he had returned later.

Again unconsciously mirroring his earlier actions as the scene played out in his mind's eye, he crossed the clearing with his hand held out. He had pleaded with his Dad to give up the gun… but what had happened next? He could now remember everything up to that point, but there his memory froze.

"Damn it!" he cried out in frustration.

Steve sat heavily on a convenient log. He was so close – he could feel the memory dance tantalizingly out of reach like an early morning dream fading as the sun rises. He knew that trying to force through the barrier in his mind was not the best way to grasp the elusive missing time, but Jesse's news from the prison had filled him with a sense of desperation, a feeling that time was running out. If he didn't get his father out of jail soon, it would be too late.

Involuntarily, he glanced down to see the darkened area where his blood had soaked into the soil among the entwined roots. He reached over without thought to touch the patch of ground, and with a jolt that was as sudden as a flash of lightening, his memories flooded back as if the blood were a visceral connection to the past. The images played vividly in his mind, and with a groan, he buried his head in his arms.

Jesse found him still in that pose minutes later as he ran up the hill in search of his friend. He paused in alarm at the sight of Steve, not sure whether his frozen posture indicated that he was in serious physical pain or whether it presaged bad news – either that he had been unable to remember the crucial events or that the returning memories had not given him the information he needed to help Mark. He sat beside his friend and touched him gently on the shoulder, but when Steve lifted his face, Jesse found himself unable to read his expression. This was hardly surprising, since Steve himself didn't know how to feel or, at least, he had so many conflicting emotions jostling for predominance within him that he was unable to sort through them. He was deeply relieved that he could finally reassure his father, angry at himself and the sheriff and the legal process in general, and guilty over the inadvertent role he himself had played.

"Dad didn't shoot me," he informed Jesse, an undercurrent of disbelief coloring his voice, not because he ever doubted his father, but at the vagaries of fate. "If anyone was to blame it was me."

"That's great!" enthused Jesse, but at Steve's wry glance, he retracted his initial reaction. "What I mean is – Mark will be really happy to hear that. I mean, he'll be glad it's not his fault." He shook his head, abandoning his attempt to clarify his well-meaning, but slightly inept responses. "So what happened?" he asked.

"Dad was giving me the gun, I tripped over the roots here, knocked him over, and the gun went off on impact as we hit the ground. It was all a stupid, preventable accident. If I'd been more careful..."

"Whoa! Stop right there! What is it with you Sloans," Jesse said in affectionate exasperation. "Is guilt your middle name? Let it go. As you said, it was an accident. It wasn't your fault; and it seems to me that you paid a pretty heavy price for it anyway."

"Dad's paying a heavier one." Steve shook his head. There was no time for self indulgence now. "Don't worry, Jess. You're right."

"I am?" Jesse looked pleased.

"If I'm going to place the blame for this on anybody, it'll be on the person who really precipitated this senseless mess – Bobby Phillips. He's the one who stole the gun and drugged Dad. We've just got to find conclusive proof to clear Dad, and he's the last piece of this puzzle."

Jesse finally remembered to tell Steve about finding the missing glass, and was pleased to see the last of the guilt disappear from his face and grim determination replace it. He wasn't so happy to hear the plan to confront Bobby at his home, but a counter suggestion that Steve return to the hospital and Jesse travel to the teenager's house met with stony rejection. Steve was determined to clear up all loose ends and get his father out of jail that very day if humanly possible. Jesse was worried about the physical toll the exertion was exacting on his half-healed injuries, but even he had to admit that, apart from a certain pallor, Steve was looking much happier than he had when confined to his hospital bed.

Hoping he wasn't making a big mistake, Jesse agreed to drive to the address Rachel had given them for Bobby's house.


	18. Chapter 18

Bobby Phillips approached the regional prison nervously. For the last week, his life seemed to be spiraling more and more out of control. He had been appalled to read in the newspaper about the vacationing elderly doctor who had shot his police lieutenant son, claiming to be drugged at the time. He had every reason to know that that claim was true, and had been even more horrified when he realized that nobody believed the doctor's claim and that he had been sent to prison to await trial while his son lay in critical condition in the local hospital.

Bobby was truly upset by the consequences of what he and Nick had done. He had never anticipated that anyone would get hurt as a result of their actions. He had figured the only person to be affected would be the person who had killed his brother; and even that had not taken on a sense of reality. The truth was that Bobby had never personally encountered violence before, and now that he had, he was totally horrified. He began to realize that, even if they had succeeded in stealing a gun, he might never have been able to go through with the plan anyway.

To make matters worse, Nick had seemed quite pleased by the turn of events, feeling that this removed any possibility of the doctor making trouble for them. Bobby was beginning to feel that he had never really known Nick at all. He had accepted without question Nick's friendship with his brother, and had believed in him implicitly as he had urged that the only way to avenge Jake was to take action themselves. However, since the disaster with Mark, Bobby had been extremely reluctant to go through with the plan, refusing to try to steal another gun or make plans to do so. And Nick was obviously not at all pleased with Bobby's sudden attack of conscience. In fact, he had been quite emphatic, not to mention threatening, about the dire consequences should Bobby succumb to his feelings of guilt and try going to the police.

Bobby had finally decided that the only way out of this mess was to disappear. There was little to keep him here anyway. The aunt and uncle he had been living with since the death of his parents several years ago had never made any real attempt to get close to the boy they had taken in, merely fulfilling their obligation as his only remaining family. They had fed, clothed, and basically ignored him, being caught up in their own misery of poverty and drink. That was why Jake had worked so hard to make some money as soon as he finished high school, so he could bring Bobby to live with him and get him out of that environment. Well, now Jake was dead, and Bobby was on his own. With no one to turn to for advice or assistance, he figured his best bet was to get away from Nick and the drug ring, and start afresh somewhere else. He wasn't exactly sure where to go, but he figured he would start by going to Jake's apartment. Not all of Jake's things had been sent back yet, and he hoped that he might find some things he could use there. Maybe, he thought hopefully, Jake would have left some money stashed in the hiding place he had shown Bobby the last time he had gone to visit.

But before he left Clear Valley, Bobby had one more thing he felt he had to do. The old man from the cabin – Dr. Sloan, the newspapers had called him – had been the one person in Bobby's life lately, other than Jake, who had seemed to be genuinely concerned and interested in helping Bobby. And now he was in jail, believing, from what the papers had said, that Bobby had been the one who drugged him. He had reminded Bobby so much of his deceased grandfather, that Bobby's dreams lately had been haunted by visions of that much-loved man reproaching him for what he had done. Before he left, Bobby just wanted to explain to Dr. Sloan that he had not done that to him, that he was so sorry for what had happened. He didn't know if the doctor would listen to him or forgive him, but he knew he would never have any peace if he didn't try.

So, Bobby entered the prison and asked to see Dr. Mark Sloan, claiming to be his grandson. There was some hesitation and resistance to allowing an unaccompanied minor in to see a prisoner, but Bobby had taken the precaution of forging a note from his aunt giving permission for him to see his ersatz grandparent. He might still have been denied, but, fortunately, some sort of administrative problem arose, and the man in charge, distracted by the larger issues and unwilling to spend more time arguing with the polite but persistent youth, took the easy way out by accepting the note and permitting the visit.

Bobby entered the interview room and paused just inside the door, wondering for a moment if he had made a mistake. At first glance, the dispirited-looking man who sat at the table before him seemed to bear little resemblance to the alert, kindly man whose warmth, concern, and general air of dependability had led Bobby to confide in him. Then Mark lifted his head to look at him, and he could see that it was, in fact, the same person; but the obvious change in him was increasing Bobby's sense of guilt tenfold. He stood there, trying to think of what to say to this man whose life, he suddenly realized, he had probably helped to ruin.

Mark had been brought once again from his cell to receive a visitor. He hadn't even bothered to question the identity of the visitor; he had just assumed it was Jesse. He was conscious of only a mild sense of surprise that Jesse would be returning this soon, but couldn't dredge up enough energy to pursue the thought. The surprise at seeing the teen from the cabin, however, was sharp enough to pierce the haze of indifference that surrounded him.

"Skylar?"

Bobby had braced himself to face anger and accusations, but this single-word expression of surprise seemed to be unaccompanied by either of those emotions – or any other emotion, for that matter. Even to Bobby, this absence of any strong emotion, or even energy, was strange and almost alarming. He suddenly found himself taking his fence at a rush, a burst of speech spouting somewhat incoherently from his mouth.

"I had to come. I'm so sorry. I just wanted you to know that I never wanted this to happen. It wasn't me who drugged you, it was Nick. I never thought anybody was going to get hurt. I just wanted the guy who killed Jake to pay for it; I never wanted to hurt anybody else. And now everything's so awful and I don't know what to do and Nick'll kill me if I tell…"

The confusing spate of words poured out faster than Mark was able to process them. But the pain and distress in the boy's face and voice were unmistakable. Depressed and lethargic as he was, the sight of such obvious distress roused Mark to make an effort on Bobby's behalf. Struggling to force his brain to start functioning, he tried to interrupt long enough to slow the boy down.

"Bobby – it is Bobby really, isn't it?" Mark asked, remembering with an effort the yearbook picture he had identified earlier that day. "Take it easy; slow down and tell me what you're doing here."

Bobby took a deep, shaky breath, and tried to pull himself together. There was still no obvious sign of fury, and some of the life and intelligence seemed to be returning to the older man's manner. He swallowed hard, and started again.

"I had to come and tell you that I'm so sorry about what happened. And to tell you that I wasn't the one who put the drugs in your drink."

"Why don't you just tell me the whole story," Mark suggested, trying to fight the feeling of disinterest and detachment that had increasingly filled him over the last few days.

"Nick was with me when I was at the cabin. He got out through a back window when you came in, and he was hiding in the bushes listening when we were eating. He was afraid I'd give too much away, so he slipped the drug into your drink when you went back inside for a minute." Bobby raised wide, desperate eyes to Mark's. "I didn't know what to do! When you started getting high, we took off – I never thought anything bad would happen to you! I was just scared. And ever since then," he continued, sounding more than ever like a scared little boy, the story pouring out of him, "things have been getting worse. I didn't want to go through with the revenge anymore. But Nick's been really – different. He keeps harping on how we can't tell anyone what happened because they'll kill us, just like they killed Jake." He stopped for breath, fighting off tears.

Mark listened to the story unfolding, trying to figure out how to respond. The boy was obviously pushed to the limits of his endurance – deeply in trouble with apparently no one he felt he could turn to. Under normal circumstances, Mark would have urged him to tell his tale to the police, would have had Steve talk to the boy and be sure that he was protected if there was real reason to fear harm. But Steve was incapacitated – and the thought of that situation and his own role in it still sent a piercing stab of anguish through him – and Mark had no reason to place any faith in the compassion and competence of Sheriff Consten.

"Isn't there anybody you can talk to, Bobby?" he asked, feeling helpless. "What about your family?"

"They're no good," Bobby replied dismally. "My folks died a few years back. And my aunt and uncle barely know I'm around. My uncle drinks too much, and my aunt – well, she's not much of anything. Jake was the only person who cared; he was all I had." The pain in Bobby's voice resonated strongly with Mark, who recognized the despair of having lost the most important person in your life. Time was, he thought, when he would have had something to offer to this youth, would have taken him under his wing and tried to help him. But what did he have to offer now?

"I'm just going to get away," Bobby continued, breaking into Mark's despondent thoughts. "I'm going to get far away from here and start over on my own." He looked hesitantly into Mark's eyes. "I just wanted you to know that I'm really sorry about what happened to you – and your son." He swallowed as he saw the pain in Mark's face at the reference to Steve. "And I'm sorry that I can't help you. But Nick says they'll never believe me anyway, because he'll deny it, and then they'll kill me. So I'm leaving."

There was a knock on the door, and the guard poked his head in to tell Bobby that his time was up. He looked back at Mark, unsure how to take his leave, his guilt at what he had done to this man – who even now showed no signs of hating or blaming him, but was trying to help him – increasing as the time came for him to go. "I'm sorry," he repeated fervently.

"Where will you go?" Mark asked, feeling that he was failing this boy too, that he should have been able to help him in some way, but unable to get his brain to find a path through the tangle of circumstances that Bobby had presented.

"I'll find a place," Bobby replied with a show of confidence he certainly didn't feel. "Jake had a place where he used to hide some money. They haven't cleaned out all his stuff yet; I'll stop there first. Then I'll head to Sacramento or someplace where they won't be able to find me." The guard ushered Bobby out then, and he was gone.

Mark stared at the door, considering the implications of this development. Here had been confirmation that he had been drugged; perhaps he should have urged more strongly that Bobby tell the police what had happened. But Bobby was obviously terrified of testifying. And would it really make any difference to Mark's situation? The boy was right – if the other teen denied it, what proof was there that Mark had ever been drugged? And even if they could prove that he was given the drug involuntarily, he thought hopelessly, did it really matter? The fact remained that he had shot his son. Even if he had been drugged, he must have known it was Steve; and he had shot him anyway. The relentless self-indictment played itself through his mind once more. There was no circumstance that was sufficient to exculpate him in his own mind. And now, in addition to betraying his son, he had failed to find a way to help this disturbed youth. As another guard led Mark back to his cell, the now-familiar depression settled deeper upon him.


	19. Chapter 19

Steve and Jesse stopped off at the Sheriff's office on the way to Bobby's house to pick up Steve's gun. To Jesse's relief, the burly sheriff wasn't there; he could sense an impending and potentially explosive confrontation between Steve and Consten, and was happy for it to be postponed as long as possible. A deputy processed the necessary paperwork and handed Steve back his gun.

Jesse pulled up outside the address they had been given for Bobby Phillips. Technically, it was his maternal uncle's house, his relatives having taken him in after his parents' death.

"Stay in the car, Jess, while I check this out," Steve ordered, automatically falling back into police routine. However, when he got round to the front of the car, Jesse was right behind him, smiling brightly when Steve shot a quizzical look his way.

"What part of 'stay in the car' didn't you understand, Jess?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not this time, my friend. A strong wind would blow you over right now. I'm not letting you face this kid alone."

"That's why I have the gun," Steve pointed out patiently, but Jesse scoffed at that idea.

"Somehow I can't see you using it to shoot a 15-year-old kid, even if he has a gun. I know you better than that. You'd try to find another way to disarm him."

Steve's grimace told Jesse he'd made his point, and he wasn't surprised when Steve gestured to him to follow with a curt, "Stay behind me."

They walked up the path to the rather dilapidated house. Paint was peeling off the wooden walls, and there were rusting pieces of junk scattered around. From his position behind Steve, Jesse was unable to see what made Steve suddenly stiffen and say in a voice that brooked no argument, "Stay here." He obeyed instinctively, and watched as Steve drew his gun and moved forward to the door, then disappeared inside. He waited in an agony of suspense, inching closer to the door, then let out a yelp of surprise as Steve materialized at the door again in the process of holstering his gun. He nodded Jesse inside, and guided him over to where a body lay on the floor.

"He's dead. Is it Bobby?"

Jesse knelt down beside the body, automatically checking the pulse, even though he didn't doubt Steve's diagnosis. He looked closely at what he could see of the corpse. The face was that of a teenager, and Jesse felt that he looked vaguely familiar, but it wasn't Bobby Phillips.

"I think I've maybe seen his picture in one of the yearbooks," he offered uncertainly.

Steve nodded. "I'm going to call it in, Jess. I'd hate for the police in this town to happen by and find us standing over a dead body."

"I think they'd find this one hard to pin on us. I'd guess he's been dead for maybe an hour. The coroner can give a more accurate estimate."

"I'd say Bobby Phillips has a lot of questions to answer," Steve said with a great deal of satisfaction in his voice. He made the call on his cell phone, and they went outside to wait for the sheriff to arrive.

Jesse was keeping a watchful eye on Steve. Although he actually seemed to be getting stronger as they gathered more evidence that would help Mark, Jesse feared that he was running on pure adrenaline and this exertion would catch up with him at some point.

The Sheriff arrived in his car with a deputy within minutes. He growled something unintelligible, then pushed past them into the house. When he exited, he stalked over to Steve to demand an explanation.

"What the hell happened here?"

Steve's answer was nonchalant to the point of being deliberately provocative. "We came to ask Bobby Phillips some questions after my father identified him as the kid who drugged him. We found the body when we arrived. Do you know him?"

The sheriff hesitated, obviously loathe to impart any information, but eventually identified the teen as Thomas Caymen. His attempts to question Steve more closely about his discovery of the body were ignored, as Steve had his own agenda to follow.

He produced the lemonade glass contained in a plastic bag. "We found this in the bushes by the cabin. I'm fairly sure its the one my father drank from, and you should find trace remains of the drug that Bobby Phillips spiked it with. The visit to the cabin triggered the return of my memory, and I can now corroborate every word of my father's story."

"How convenient." The sheriff's words were almost a sneer, but Steve continued, his words icy and deliberate.

"My father didn't shoot me; it was an accident, and I want the charges against him dropped now."

Steve stopped short of accusing the sheriff of incompetence, but the implication was there.

Consten shrugged, concealing his discomfort under a veneer of indifference. "You're a cop, you know how it works; that's none of my business. I just collect the evidence; the DA decides what to do with it. If you hurry, you might find him in the County Office Building on Main Street. However, before you go there, I need a statement from you both concerning the murder here."

Steve moved closer to the sheriff, his dwindling patience finally snapping. "We came to ask Bobby Phillips some questions. When we arrived, the door was open and there was a smear of blood on the doorway. I went in and found the body. There were no other people or vehicles in the vicinity. That's my statement. Anything else will have to wait, because I'm going to talk to the DA to get an innocent man out of jail."

His controlled fury was intimidating, but Jesse was afraid he was in no fit condition to back up his challenge if the argument turned physical, and he hastily intervened by offering to sign a statement for the sheriff and drop Steve off at the DA's office on the way. This compromise was acceptable to Consten as a way to save face, and he moved grudgingly out of their way.

"I see you've been working on your interpersonal skills again," joked Jesse, trying to lighten the atmosphere as they drove towards town; but Steve's customary good humor had been seriously eroded by the continuous worry and pain of the last few days, and he ignored the younger man's teasing remarks, closing his eyes and marshaling his resources for the last, but all-important, task.

Jesse dropped him off at the county Office Building and, following the posted directions, Steve walked haltingly up the stairs to a second-floor office with the sign "Matthew Watson DA" on it. Steve knocked on the door, but entered without waiting for an invitation. The middle-aged, balding man at the desk rose to his feet, frowning at Steve's abrupt entrance. His expression did not improve as Steve introduced himself and his mission.

"My name is Lieutenant Steve Sloan. That should be familiar to you, since your office has brought charges of attempted murder against my father, Mark Sloan. I want those charges dismissed and my father released today. The shooting was an accident, as any idiot should have realized. My father was giving me the gun when I tripped and caused the gun to go off. The police have proof that my father was drugged at the time."

Steve knew the last point was skating the truth, but he was confident that the glass would have some trace of narcotic in it. Watson started to protest, but Steve overrode him, leaning over the desk to emphasize his point.

"No jury in the world will convict my father over my testimony. You've got no case, and you know it. My father has already been hurt in jail. If he's not out tonight, and he so much as stubs his toe, I will personally make sure you never work a case in this state again."

Watson quailed before the steely determination in Steve's eyes. "I'm sure you appreciate that this needs to go through the proper channels. I need to review your father's file and make some phone calls."

"That's fine," Steve said with spurious affability. "I'll wait right here." He plunked himself down in a convenient chair near the door to watch the DA's every move.

Obviously flustered by this constant regard, Watson went through the motions, thumbing through a thin file he plucked from a cabinet and placing one call to the Sheriff's Department. Before long, he had typed up a document on the computer, printed it out and handed it to Steve saying unctuously, "I'm sure as a policeman you understand that, in the circumstances, we acted according to the available evidence."

Steve looked at him with barely concealed dislike. "On the contrary, I believe that my father's story was never properly investigated. His treatment by the police and this department bordered on the draconian, and I'm sure he'll be discussing that with his lawyer."

With this rather mendacious threat, Steve stalked from the room in triumph. Jesse was waiting for him in front of the building, and Steve waved the paper in the air and broke into a grin, the first for a long while.

"Let's go get Dad!"


	20. Chapter 20

Steve left Jesse finishing the paperwork formalities at the prison administrative office, and followed the guard down the corridor to the interview room. The first flush of excitement from knowing that he could finally free his father had faded, and along with the relief, he was now experiencing a heightened sense of anxiety about what he would find when he saw him. He had an enormous respect for his father's mental and emotional strength, having had ample opportunities to observe them over the course of the years. In fact, he sometimes felt that his father kept too much in, carrying almost to extremes his dislike of displaying his personal pain. The picture Jesse had painted of Mark's mental state, therefore, had Steve seriously alarmed.

When they arrived at the interview room, Steve drew a deep breath and pulled himself erect, concentrating on blotting out the pain and discomfort of his injury, knowing that any show of pain on his part would only exacerbate his father's feelings of guilt. He opened the door and stepped quietly into the room, his gaze immediately fastening on the figure sitting at the table. Mark sat with his head down, staring listlessly at the table in front him, apparently unaware of the entrance of another person. Or perhaps he just wasn't interested enough to look up, Steve realized suddenly. Forewarned though he was, he was shocked by the uncharacteristic air of apathy that clung to his father, recalling sharply Jesse's description of how Mark had seemed uninterested in any attempt to clear him of the charges he faced. Steve pulled the door closed behind him and approached the table.

"Dad," he said quietly, not quite sure what reaction he would get.

Mark seemed to stiffen, and his head jerked up, a spark of life flaring briefly in the eyes that had been so empty a moment before.

"Steve?" Surprise overrode the deadening feeling of emptiness. "You should still be in the hospital…" He trailed off, his gaze searching his son for signs of his injury, hesitant to meet Steve's eyes, unable to avert his own from the vision of his son, live and whole, standing in front of him.

"I'm fine now, Dad," Steve assured him, the shakiness and hesitancy in his normally self-possessed father's voice and manner wringing his heart. "I've come to get you out."

Mark's mouth twisted. "You convinced them to set bail?" he asked, the light that had briefly lit his face at the sight of his son fading.

"It's not a matter of bail, Dad," Steve replied. "All charges have been dismissed. You're free and clear."

"Clear." Mark's eyes closed briefly, and he turned his head away, a wave of despair engulfing him. Whatever story his son had told to free him, whatever verdict an unknown DA might render, nothing would ever clear him in his own conscience or diminish the agony of what he had done.

Steve's heart twisted at the sight of an expression he had never before seen on his father's face. He had seen Mark experience terror, anguish, grief, self-doubt, even depression; but never had he seen his father give in to pure, soul-searing despair. He knew what lay behind that despair; the urgent need now was to find the words to show him how mistaken was the guilt he bore. He sat down at the table next to Mark.

"Dad," he said, his voice low and deliberate. "You didn't shoot me. It was an accident."

"An accident?" Mark forced himself to face his son. "I fired two shots."

Steve couldn't bear the sight of the pain in his father's face. The guilt and anguish Mark felt were obviously tearing him apart. Steve's voice became even more urgent and intent.

"Dad, listen to me. I finally remembered everything, just the way it happened. When I got back from testifying, I found the cabin door open, the remains of a meal on the table, and no one in sight. I heard a shot and went out to see what was going on. That must have been your first shot. I found you up at the clearing above the lake, holding a gun, turning it over and looking at it like you were trying to figure out how it worked. I could tell you were drugged or something, and I was afraid it would go off again, so I tried to talk you into giving it to me." He saw his father tense, obviously bracing himself to hear what was to come, and hastened to reassure him. "You were handing the gun over, Dad. You never pointed it at me, never tried to fire it. Only, I was so focussed on you and the gun, that I tripped; I fell right into you, and we both went down. The way you were holding it, I doubt that your finger was even on the trigger – the gun went off when we hit the ground." He tried to hold his father's gaze, putting everything he had into convincing him that he was telling the truth. "It was an accident." He watched the doubt and uncertainty that played across Mark's face, and continued, desperate to convince him.

"Dad, we've never lied to each other – not over anything that mattered. I'm telling you the absolute truth. When I went out to the cabin with Jesse, it all came back to me as clear as could be. It happened just the way I told you. It's not your fault, Dad. You didn't shoot me. It was an accident." For a moment longer he stared into his father's eyes as the issue hung in the balance. Then Mark's eyes closed, and he sagged back in the chair as the unbearable tension drained out of him. Steve found himself feeling limp with relief as he realized that his dad had accepted the truth of his tale. He knew that it would be a while before Mark would be able to let go of the residual feelings of guilt, but at least now he could begin the process of coping with what had happened. He gently gripped his father's shoulder, knowing that the contact would be accepted now, that it would bring comfort, not an increase in Mark's self recriminations.

The first, critical need now met, Steve could spare the attention to assess his father's physical condition. He hadn't missed Mark's involuntary wince as his ribs protested when he sagged against the chair. That sign of pain, along with the white, drawn face with its deep circles under hollow eyes, the dark bruising visible on his neck, the almost lifeless droop of the figure before him, all testified to the terrible toll the events of the past week had taken. Steve's own physical pain paled in comparison to the ache in his heart as he surveyed the physical and emotional damage his father had suffered. He waited silently for Mark to compose himself sufficiently to look up, maintaining what he hoped was a reassuring contact.

Mark sat with his head down, struggling with the confusing emotions that were overwhelming him. He wasn't sure what he felt or even what he should be feeling. He was almost afraid to believe what Steve had told him, but had to accept his son's obvious sincerity. If he hadn't ever aimed at his son, hadn't ever pulled the trigger when he was present, if it had all been truly just a horrible accident, perhaps there could be forgiveness for him after all. Relief warred with a lingering sense of doubt and guilt, not easily lifted after the week-long descent into depression and despair, and with the fear that he might still have somehow damaged the relationship that meant more to him than his life, that things might not be the same between Steve and him. He opened his eyes, stealing a glance at his son, still hesitant to face what he might see in his eyes.

"Steve…" He searched for the words to express his regrets, his love, his concern for his son.

"Dad, it's okay," Steve interjected reassuringly.

"I'm so sorry…" Mark's voice trailed off shakily.

Steve's heart twisted anew at the pain in his father's face and voice. He noticed that Mark was still avoiding any prolonged eye contact, and knew that he was having trouble letting go of the guilt.

"Dad, look at me," he urged quietly. He saw Mark force himself to lift his eyes to meet Steve's full on. "This wasn't your fault. You did nothing wrong. If either of us is to blame for this mess, it should be me; if I'd been more careful and hadn't tripped, this would never have happened."

"It's not your fault," Mark objected. "You can't blame yourself."

Steve smiled at him with deep affection. "I won't if you won't," he offered, the lightness of the words in no way disguising the obvious sincerity of the sentiment.

Mark searched his son's face, seeing the love and concern that were the best balm to the grief and anguish in his heart. He drew a ragged breath, squeezing his eyes shut to hide the tears that suddenly welled up as his battered emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

"Come on, Dad," Steve said gently, giving a comforting squeeze to his father's shoulder. "Let's get you out of here."

A few minutes later, after Mark had been led off to change back into his own clothes and collect his few things, the two Sloans emerged into the lobby of the prison where Jesse waited. Jesse looked up anxiously, scanning both faces for an indication of how the reunion had gone. He was greatly relieved to see signs of life again in Mark's eyes, replacing the hopeless anguish that had been there so recently. And if there was an uncharacteristic air of hesitancy about his friend, as if he weren't quite sure of where he was or what to do, at least the sense of total apathy was gone. Steve, too, looked less driven and more relaxed, now that he had accomplished the task of freeing his father. Jesse moved to grip both friends' arms.

"Mark. Thank God this is all over," he said fervently.

"It won't be completely over until they pick up Bobby Phillips," Steve declared grimly. "I want to see the kid who caused all this behind bars."

"You think they'll find him?" asked Jesse. "If he killed Tommy Caymen, it's not likely that he'd stick around here, is it?"

Mark looked at the two of them in confusion. "Wait a minute. What's this about Bobby?"

"Apparently, Bobby Phillips managed to get hold of another gun," Steve told him, "and committed the murder he was planning."

"That doesn't make any sense," Mark protested, thinking of the interview he had had with Bobby earlier. "He said he was running away because he didn't want to get involved with any more violence."

It was Steve and Jesse's turn to exchange looks of confusion.

"You said he told you that he was stealing the gun to kill the person who killed his brother," said Jesse, bewildered.

"He did. But he came here today and told me that he couldn't go through with it," Mark responded.

Steve stared at him. "He came here? Today?" His face darkened. "He had some nerve."

Mark scanned the faces before him, struggling to arrange his thoughts and try to understand what was going on here. It suddenly occurred to him that Steve and Jesse still thought that Bobby was the one who had drugged him.

"He wanted to tell me that he was sorry for what happened," Mark explained quietly, "and that he wasn't the one who put the drug in my drink." He saw skepticism in his friend's and son's faces. "It wasn't an easy thing for him to do," he added. "I really can't believe that he killed anybody. What happened?"

"Apparently, he shot a boy named Tommy Caymen," Steve replied. "Jesse and I found the body when we went to Bobby's house to bring him in to tell his story."

"What time was this Tommy killed?" Mark asked.

"The body was still slightly warm when we found it," Jesse answered. "I'd guess he'd been dead about an hour. And that was when we found him around 3:45."

"It must have been around 4:00 when Bobby came here," Mark said. "That doesn't leave much time for him to have killed Tommy and gotten all the way out here. And why come to see me anyway? Why wouldn't he have gotten as far away as possible?"

"Maybe he thought he could establish an alibi," suggested Jesse. "Or maybe he thought it would help if he convinced you that he wasn't the one who drugged you."

"Not much of an alibi," Mark commented. "Who would think to question me about his whereabouts? And if you hadn't gotten me released, I'd probably never even have heard about this, so it's not like I could have volunteered the information. Not that anything I said would carry much weight anyway, under the circumstances."

The hint of depression that underlay that last comment flicked a painful lash across Steve's heart.

"What did he tell you when he was here?" he asked, as much to keep his father's mind on Bobby's situation as anything else. He wasn't entirely convinced yet that Bobby was guiltless in all this. Normally, he would be inclined to trust his father's instincts in such matters, but given Mark's state of mind recently, it wouldn't be surprising if his normal perceptiveness and judgement were off kilter. But encouraging the mental exercise of making a case on Bobby's behalf would at least help him focus on something productive and hopefully prevent a re-descent into depression.

Mark tried to pull himself together enough to marshal a coherent statement. His brain seemed to have grown a thick layer of fuzz over the last week, and it was with an effort that he managed to mentally review his conversation with Bobby and pull out the significant points.

"He said that he wasn't alone that day at the cabin," Mark began. "There was another boy with him – Nick, I think he said his name was. Nick was supposedly a friend of Bobby's brother, and he was the one who convinced Bobby to seek revenge against the boy who had killed his brother. He said Nick was hiding in the bushes while we were talking, and he was the one who slipped the drugs in the lemonade when I went back in the cabin."

"Sounds like he was trying to pass off all the blame onto someone else," observed Jesse skeptically.

"It doesn't make sense," Mark insisted. "He had nothing to gain by coming to tell me that. He was truly upset by what had happened. And he was scared." Things were starting to fall into place now, as his concentration increased. "He said Nick had been threatening him; he was afraid he would be killed if he stayed here. He said he was afraid to go to the police to tell what he knew because they would kill him." He met Steve's eyes, and his son was thankful to see the familiar expression that indicated an idea burgeoning. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "it occurred to me, back at the cabin, to wonder about the overly altruistic motives of the 'friend of his brother' who wanted to see Bobby avenge his brother's death. What if this Tommy was the boy who killed Bobby's brother, but Nick had his own reasons for wanting Tommy dead?"

"Scott did mention that Tommy Caymen was bragging about being involved in 'something big' to do with drugs," volunteered Jesse. "And he mentioned a Nick Dempsey as well."

"So Tommy kills Bobby's brother and when Bobby decides not to kill Tommy himself, Nick goes ahead and kills him?" recapped Steve. "So how did the body end up at Bobby's house?"

"Maybe Nick is trying to frame Bobby," suggested Mark. "If Tommy is the one who killed Bobby's brother, Bobby would certainly appear to have a motive. And if Sheriff Consten thinks Bobby killed Tommy, he isn't likely to pay much attention to anything Bobby says about Nick."

There was a moment's silence as that statement was accepted. Certainly, they all had reason to know that the sheriff tended not to look beyond the obvious once he had made up his mind. Mark raised worried eyes to his son's.

"Steve, I need to find Bobby. He's alone and he's scared, and he probably has no idea that they're looking for him in connection with Tommy's murder. And there's no saying that Nick will be satisfied with just implicating Bobby in the murder, especially if he finds out he has an alibi. He may very well go ahead and try to kill Bobby to shut him up for good."

Steve gazed back at his father, trying to weigh the options. His strongest desire was to get his dad out of all this, to take him home and allow him to start healing in the familiar and comforting setting of the beach house. He found that he couldn't quite bring himself to care all that much about what happened to the boy who, even if he hadn't actually put the drugs in Mark's drink, nevertheless didn't seem to have done much to prevent it, nor to have made any attempt to come forward and support Mark's story, which might have kept his father out of jail. But Mark was obviously deeply concerned, and Steve had a feeling that his need to help Bobby was at least partially driven by a compulsion to do something constructive to help offset what he still felt was his own guilt in this affair. There was also the fact that the mental involvement in the case was giving his father a much-needed boost back to normalcy. And right now, Steve would have willingly launched an investigation to prove that the bogeyman was real if it would fan that spark of life and actively engaged intelligence that were reawakening in his father.

"Okay, Dad," he assented, these thoughts passing through his mind in a brief flash. "Do you have any idea where Bobby might have gone?"

"He said something about heading to Sacramento," Mark said. "But first, he was going to stop at his brother's apartment." He thought about it for a moment, then added with a touch of frustration, "But I don't think he gave any indication of where his brother lived."

"That's okay; that's something I can get," Steve said with determination, pulling out his cell phone. "Come on, I'll call Cheryl as Jesse's driving."

Mark took a good look at his son, noting his pallor, and the lines of pain in his face, and didn't move.

"Steve, the only place you should be going is back to the hospital," he said in concern.

Steve stopped short, turning to look at his father. "Dad, I'm fine," he declared, exchanging a quick glance with Jesse, who had no difficulty in reading the look Steve shot him: Stay out of it. Jesse struggled with his own internal battle. He knew that Mark was right; Steve was pushing himself dangerously far here. There was a very real risk that he could rip open stitches that had repaired the damage to his abdomen and start bleeding internally, requiring emergency surgery. And if that happened, even if they got him to the hospital in time, there was no guarantee that he would survive such a surgery on top of everything else his body had been through. On the other hand, he had a strong feeling that nothing he said was going to alter Steve's determination to stay with his father now, no matter what happened. And by adding his medical prohibition to Mark's, he would only increase Mark's concern and guilt over what might happen to his son. So Jesse kept his mouth shut, and watched his friends battle it out.

"Steve, you should never have been allowed out of the hospital this soon after the type of injury you suffered. If you start bleeding internally, you could die." Mark struggled to keep his voice under control, trying to cloak his fear for his son under a tone of professional assessment. He doubted that he had succeeded.

"Dad," Steve kept his own voice as matter-of-fact as he could, knowing that he was walking an emotional tightrope here. "I'm all right – really. I promise, I'll take it easy. I've even got a cane in the car that I'll use. But I'm not…," he paused almost imperceptibly, suddenly changing what he was going to say, "…going back to the hospital," he continued. He was thankful that he had caught himself before uttering his original thought: "letting you go without me," knowing that that would put his father in the untenable position of either risking his son or refraining from pursuing a course of action that would help offset his feelings of guilt.

Mark searched his son's face, trying to decide what he should do. He recognized the determination he saw there, and knew that he had virtually no chance of persuading Steve to return to the hospital while he went after Bobby. Which meant that he either gave up the hope of rescuing Bobby from whatever danger he might be in, or he allowed his son to go with him, knowing that he really should be in the hospital. As he hesitated, Steve's face softened.

"It's okay, Dad, really," he repeated quietly. "And I'm not going back to the hospital no matter what you decide to do, so we might as well all go together. We're just going to find Bobby and talk to him; that shouldn't be all that strenuous."

Mark hesitated a moment more, battling his insecurities about risking Steve further, then gave in to what he knew was the inevitable outcome. He nodded wordlessly, and they headed to Jesse's car, hoping that Steve's assessment of the circumstances would turn out to be accurate.


	21. Chapter 21

Bobby entered his brother's apartment feeling tired and depressed. It had taken him a long time to get here, since he didn't want to be seen at the bus station, so he had walked a fair distance out of town and then hitchhiked the rest of the way. His first act on arriving at the building where Jake had lived had been to search the hiding place in the basement where his brother had often hidden some extra cash that he didn't want his associates to know he had. Unfortunately, there had been nothing there this time. Between fatigue, concern for his future – especially now that the extra money he had been counting on to support him while he looked for a job in Sacramento had failed to materialize – and the heightened sense of guilt he felt since he had seen Mark in jail, his spirits were at a definite ebb point. He let himself into the apartment with the key Jake had given him, and tossed his backpack on the cheap sofa in the single room that served as living and dining space. Jake had paid the rent through the end of the month, and nobody had yet come to empty the apartment and turn it back over to the landlord, so Bobby figured he could at least stay here until morning, and face the problems of his situation after a decent night's sleep.

As he wandered around the small kitchen, poking aimlessly through the cabinets, he was startled to hear the sound of someone unlocking the front door. He peered cautiously out from the kitchen to see Nick entering the apartment. Surprised, and somewhat alarmed, he stepped out into the living room.

"Nick! What are you doing here?"

Nick looked up, obviously equally startled to find Bobby in situ, but quickly attempting to cover up his surprise.

"Bobby! I hoped I'd find you here," he said. "I wanted to warn you."

"Warn me of what?"

"That the cops are looking for you."

"For what?" asked Bobby in astonishment. Frantically, he reviewed his visit with Mark; had the doctor sent the police after him to confirm that he had, in fact, been drugged?

"Somebody killed Tommy Caymen," Nick told him, breaking into his mental replay of that earlier scene. "The cops think you did it."

"But I didn't! You know I didn't!" exclaimed Bobby, horrified.

"Sure, I know that," replied Nick, moving closer to the younger boy. "But the cops don't. And you could have a hard time proving it. The best thing you can do is get as far away from here as possible."

"But why are they looking for me?" Bobby asked in bewilderment. "I've been staying away from Tommy."

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" responded Nick. "How are you going to prove that you didn't do it? The only thing you can do is try to get away before they find you."

"You seem awfully anxious to have Bobby leave the area," observed a voice from the doorway. The boys whirled to see Mark entering the apartment, closely followed by Steve and Jesse.

"And by the way," added Steve as he entered, "how did you find out so quickly that the police are looking for Bobby? I don't think that's common knowledge yet."

"Hey, it's a small town," Nick said quickly. "Word gets around pretty fast."

"I didn't do it!" Bobby cried, turning desperately to Mark. "I told you – I couldn't go through with it; I just wanted to get away from all this. What makes them think it was me?"

"Maybe you'd like to answer that, Nick," suggested Steve.

"How should I know what maggot the cops have in their brains?" Nick protested truculently. "I just heard that they were looking for Bobby and I wanted to warn him."

"Oh, you didn't hear where the body was found? I'd think in a small town like you mentioned that piece of information would be one of the first things passed around," said Mark.

Nick just glared at them, and didn't say anything. Bobby looked at them in bewilderment.

"Where was the body found?" he asked.

"Somebody planted Tommy's body in your house, Bobby," Mark told him. "Somebody who wanted to make it look like you had killed him. Somebody who had his own reasons for wanting Tommy dead."

"But who else would want to kill Tommy?" asked Bobby. "He was the main connection for the drug guys in Clear Valley. They had no reason to kill him."

"That's right," confirmed Mark. "But there was one person besides you who wanted to see Tommy dead, wasn't there?"

Wide-eyed with astonishment, Bobby turned to look at his erstwhile friend. "Nick?"

"Hey, you can't pin this on me," said Nick. "I just came out here to warn Bobby."

"You've been an awfully involved 'friend' all along, haven't you Nick?" observed Mark. "It was you who urged Bobby to kill Tommy from the beginning, you who warned him not to go to the police, and now you who want him to run away from a crime he didn't commit, ensuring that everyone will think he's guilty. Kind of makes one wonder if your motives are as altruistic as they seem."

"Especially since, with Tommy gone, you seem to be the main connection between these drug manufacturers and Clear Valley," interjected Steve. "Was that why you did it, Nick? So you could take over Tommy's position with the drug ring?"

"Don't listen to them, Bobby," Nick blustered. "They're just trying to confuse you. You know I've been looking out for you all along. Jake was my friend, and I'm just trying to take care of you."

"You know, that raises another interesting point," said Mark thoughtfully. "What kind of 'friend' frames his friend's brother for murder? Maybe you weren't the close friend to Jake that you wanted Bobby to think. In fact, maybe you weren't a friend at all."

"That's a very interesting idea," added Steve, picking up on his father's train of thought. "I'll bet if we look into it, we just might find that you were the one with Jake the night he overdosed, not Tommy. That would make a nice little power play for you, wouldn't it? You were the one who agreed to take out Jake when he looked like he wanted out, and you figured you could clear the whole field for yourself by telling Bobby that Tommy did it and then talking him into killing Tommy. Leaving you as the main drug connection in Clear Valley and Bobby taking the rap for murder."

"Nick?" Bobby's voice rose in incredulity as he advanced toward the teen he had thought was his friend. "You killed Jake? You?"

Nick glanced wildly around the room, then whipped out a gun from his pocket, grabbing Bobby by the arm, and pressing the weapon against the side of his head.

"Okay, just back off," he threatened, as the three men froze. "I'm getting out of here, and if any of you try to stop me, I'll blow a hole in his head." He shuffled sideways toward the door, his eyes flicking back and forth between Steve, Mark, and Jesse.

"Is that the gun you used on Tommy?" Mark asked. "What were you planning to do with it here, Nick? Use it to kill Bobby too?"

"Maybe," responded Nick defiantly. "If it came to that. Although I really didn't figure he'd be dumb enough to still be here."

"So, you were just planning on planting a bit more evidence to incriminate him, was that it?"

"It would have worked great, too, if you people hadn't interfered." Nick had maneuvered himself and his hostage around Mark and Jesse, who were furthest inside the room, and was now close to the door.

"Give it up, Nick," Steve said firmly. "You can't shoot all of us, and you'll never be able to run so far that the police can't find you."

"I think I can," Nick asserted. "And Bobby here's my guarantee. So if you don't want to see his brains splattered all over the floor, just stay back."

Dragging Bobby with him, he turned, as he approached the door, so that he could keep Mark and Jesse in his line of sight. Just as he was passing near Steve, who was closest to the door, Mark took a step forward, calling out, "It's no good Nick!" As Nick's eyes swiveled automatically to Mark, Steve lurched to the side, jabbing his cane behind and between Nick's legs, tripping him up. Caught completely off balance, Nick fell sideways hard, and Bobby slid out of his loosened grasp, lunging to grab the gun which skittered across the floor.

The jolt of resistance against the cane sent an excruciating stab of pain through Steve's abdomen, and he fell to the ground with a groan, landing on Nick's legs. With a anguished cry of "Steve!" Mark rushed to kneel beside his son, Jesse a bare step behind him, momentarily heedless of the actions of the two teens. But as Nick tried to roll free, shoving Steve roughly off himself, they heard Bobby call out in a voice that vibrated with rage and hatred, "Hold it right there, Nick!"

Everyone froze for a moment, all eyes on Bobby, who was standing white-faced and furious, pointing the gun at Nick.

"Bobby, don't," uttered Steve in voice tight with pain, from his prone position. Mark looked back down at him. "Lie still, son," he said, fear for Steve's condition showing through the forced calm he tried to maintain.

"I'm okay, Dad," muttered Steve, never taking his eyes from the overwrought teen with the gun.

Mark looked him over searchingly, noting that despite his pallor, Steve's breathing was returning to normal, the lines of pain in his face seemed to be easing, and there was no diaphoresis or other obvious signs of serious injury. He exchanged a quick glance with Jesse, who helped Steve to sit up, and returned his attention to Bobby. He straightened up from his position by his son, and faced the boy.

"Bobby," he said quietly. The teen's strained and anguished eyes turned to him. "You don't want to do this."

"He killed my brother," insisted Bobby, his voice throbbing with grief and hatred. "All this time he was pretending to be Jake's friend and my friend, and he killed him."

Mark held the boy's gaze, his own compassionate. "I understand how you feel, Bobby," he said quietly. "I know something about the pain of losing the person who means the most to you in the world. I know how much it hurts, and how it affects your whole life. But this isn't the way."

From his position on the floor, where he was dividing his attention between Bobby and Nick, Steve glanced sharply at his father, acutely aware of the personal relevance of what he was saying. Mark might be addressing Bobby's pain, but he was obviously referring to his own as well. Steve knew that it was his near-demise that had so affected his father, and his heart twisted at the echo of the very real pain behind that quiet voice – a pain his father was offering as a means to forge a shared bond with a similar distress.

Bobby's eyes flicked back and forth between Nick and Mark, as he hovered between conflicting desires.

"I don't care what happens to me," he cried defiantly. "There's nothing left for me anyway. I just want him to pay for what he did to Jake. Don't try and stop me."

Mark advanced slowly toward the teen. "He will pay, Bobby. We can all testify to what happened here; he'll pay for killing Jake and Tommy."

Steve watched in an agony of uncertainty as Mark moved closer to the distraught teen. All his instincts were urging him to stop his father from confronting this dangerously unstable youth, but he knew that it was important to let him do this. Mark was still somewhat emotionally unstable himself, his feelings of guilt and depression not yet fully exorcised. If Steve interfered now, not only might he ruin their best chance of preventing further violence, but he risked having his father interpret it as a lack of trust in his ability to carry off the very type of situation that he had always been so good at. And Steve knew just how important it was right now that his father not feel that the trust between them had been diminished in any way. So he held his tongue and his breath, knowing that he was possibly risking his father's life, sending up a prayer that he wasn't making a tragic mistake.

Bobby's eyes met Mark's, and he saw again the caring and sincerity that had first led him to confide in the older man at the cabin, mixed now with the memory of his recent anguish. Mark watched the wavering resolve in the boy's face, and continued his appeal.

"I know you loved Jake very much," he said gently. "And I know Jake must have loved you just as much. You told me how he tried to take care of you the only way he knew how, how he was working to make a better life for you. He wouldn't want you to throw your life away, Bobby. You've seen what violence can do – not just to the victim but to the person who commits it." Again Steve saw the pain of his father's recent experiences flit across his face. "Don't let that happen to you, Bobby," Mark urged. "Don't waste everything Jake did to help you."

By now Mark was standing right next to the teen. He held out his hand. "Give me the gun, Bobby," he said quietly. Bobby stared at him for a moment longer, then his face crumpled, and he handed the gun to Mark, collapsing into his shoulder as he succumbed to his overwrought emotions. Mark put an arm around the boy's shoulders, suddenly very pale as he glanced down at the gun in his hand. He hesitated for an instant, then slowly held the gun out, butt first, to Steve, who rose, with Jesse's assistance, to very carefully take it.


	22. Chapter 22

It was a while longer before Mark, Steve, and Jesse were able to return to Clear Valley. They had called in the local authorities, grateful that Jake's apartment was out of Sheriff Consten's bailiwick, and had given their statements to the officers who arrived. With the help of Bobby's testimony, they were able to piece together a reasonably clear outline of what was behind all this. Bobby told them of the drug manufacturing ring that was engaged in producing a new 'designer' drug. His brother Jake had been one of their major couriers, and Tommy Caymen and Nick Dempsey had been the first recruits from Clear Valley as the ring had started to expand their market in that direction. When Jake had shown signs of wanting out, however, the drug dealers had apparently decided that he represented too much of a potential risk, and had engaged Nick to rid them of the threat. Nick had apparently seen an opportunity to rid himself of a potential rival at the same time, by making Bobby think that Tommy had been responsible for Jake's death, thus, as Steve and Mark had postulated, setting it up so that he had a clear path to the open position with no risk to himself. Nick was hauled off to jail to wait for his indictment, and Bobby, with Mark and Steve's testimony on his behalf, would, in all probability, be released into his aunt and uncle's custody, with some type of court-ordered monitoring undoubtedly to be set up.

Finally, the three friends were free to leave. Mark and Jesse had overridden Steve's protests and insisted on taking him to the hospital to be thoroughly checked out, wanting to ensure that no damage had been done in his tussle with Nick. Once assured that nothing had been ruptured, however, the two doctors acceded to Steve's refusal to be readmitted; mostly, Jesse suspected, because Mark had as great a need at the moment to be near his son as Steve had to keep an eye on his father, and it was obvious to everybody that Mark wasn't really in any condition to do an all-night bedside-chair vigil, even if the hospital would have permitted it. So all three headed out to the motel where Jesse had been staying, and booked an additional room for the night.

Steve fell asleep as soon as he crawled into bed, his body pushed to the limits and beyond, succumbing to exhaustion now that the driving tension engendered by the need to help his father was relieved. Mark, however, lay awake for some while, despite his own fatigue, attempting to deal with the emotional aftermath of the recent events. So much had changed that day; his whole understanding of what had happened and his role in it had to be reevaluated. It was going to take some time to come to terms with everything and sort out his conflicting thoughts and emotions. But most importantly, he thought, his eyes drawn as if compelled to the next bed, this day had restored his son to him – physically and emotionally. As he lay watching Steve sleep, listening to his even breathing, Mark felt himself start to relax for the first time since he had woken at the edge of the lake, and he finally drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, Mark and Steve returned to the cabin to clear out their things so they could head home. Jesse had offered to do it for them, knowing that Mark wanted Steve to do as little as possible, and thinking that it might be easier on Mark not to return to the cabin just now. But Mark had resolutely refused the offer, and Steve, having his own suspicions as to his father's motivations, had backed him up. At their suggestion, therefore, Jesse dropped the Sloans off and went to meet Lisa for a farewell breakfast that Mark and Steve promised to join once they were done. In consideration of Steve's recent surgery, Jesse took his friend's truck and left them his car, enduring with good-humored equanimity his friend's strictures as to the dire consequences that would ensue if any damage were to occur to the truck. He even refrained from responding in kind, as he knew it was Mark who would be driving his car.

The Sloans worked together to quickly tidy the cabin and pack up their things, Steve promising faithfully to refrain from lifting the suitcases or any other even marginally heavy object. As Mark did a last survey of the kitchen and living areas, Steve went into the bedroom to do a final check that all was secure there, keeping an ear open as he worked. It wasn't long before he heard the sound he had been expecting: the creak of the screen door opening and closing. He waited another minute or two to give Mark time to get a good start, then followed him up the path to the opposite side of the lake.

He hiked slowly up the path, using his cane more to ensure that he didn't give his dad something to worry about than because he felt he needed it. He had guessed that Mark would revisit the site of the accident; it was his father's nature to face things head on, and just as Steve had felt compelled to go to the site to try to reconstruct the events of that fateful day, so too, he figured, would his father. Steve wasn't sure just what Mark would remember when he got to the clearing, but he wanted to be sure that he was there to provide emotional support if it was needed, and to try to head off any return to a guilt-ridden depression.

He reached the clearing to see Mark standing at the spot where Steve had been found by the EMTs – the fragment of crime scene tape still fluttering from the tree and the depression and trampling of the leaves and moss around it still marking the site. The traces of blood had finally disappeared, but there were enough signs to point out the spot where Steve had fallen to someone as observant and well-versed in reading them as his father. Steve stood quietly at the edge of the clearing, watching. He could tell his father was aware of his presence, but Mark remained silent, surveying the surrounding area.

Mark stared for a moment at the long scrapes Steve had made in the soft earth when he had tried to drag himself off to look for his father. He followed them backward to the spot where they had initially fallen, cast a quick glance back up at his son, and then stared silently at the ground, seeing again the vision of Steve lying bloody and unmoving at his feet. He cast around for signs of his own passage, and eventually spotted the damaged brush that marked the place where he had staggered over the edge of the drop-off. It couldn't be said that he remembered everything that happened, but the few vivid images that returned fit in well enough with the tale Steve had told. He returned to the site of the shooting, and then, finally, he faced his son.

"I think I had some sort of fuzzy idea of going for help," he said, knowing that Steve had been following his thoughts closely enough to understand him.

"That's where you wandered off to," observed Steve.

Mark nodded. He gazed out again in the direction of where he had fallen down the steep slope. "I wish I'd stayed and tried to do something more useful," he said.

"Dad, you were so drugged out, you didn't even realize that was a gun you were playing with," Steve responded. "You can't blame yourself for this; you've got to believe that."

"I know," Mark acknowledged. "At least, rationally I know that." He smiled wryly. "I'm just still having a bit of trouble believing it emotionally."

The hint of self-deprecating humor reassured Steve somewhat. "Just remember that it's the truth," he said firmly.

Mark nodded slightly, casting a last glance around the clearing. Then he turned to look directly at his son. "You know," he said, the quietness of his tone only serving to emphasize the depth of emotion behind his words, "the last thing in this world I ever want to do is hurt you."

"I know that, Dad," Steve replied, equally quietly. "It's not something it ever occurred to me to doubt." Watching his father's face, he was relieved to see acceptance in Mark's eyes. He hesitated for a moment, knowing that rarely did they talk openly about their emotions, relying instead on the strength of the bond that existed between them to know that even those things left verbally unexpressed were understood. But this time, he thought, he needed to push it a little further.

"You really do understand that none of this was your fault, don't you, Dad?" he asked. Mark gazed back at him, somewhat surprised by the insistence in his son's voice. He nodded again, his expression inquiring.

"Then there's something else you need to understand," Steve continued seriously. "You need to know that nothing that's happened – nothing that might have happened, nothing that ever could happen – will ever change the way I feel about you." He held his father's gaze, projecting in his own all the conviction and love he felt. "I love you, Dad."

Mark stared at his son, seeing an open love and sincerity that did more to exorcise the niggling little doubts and tendrils of guilt than any amount of rational discussion ever could. He swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. "I love you too, son," he uttered gruffly, deeply grateful that he had not, after all, forfeited forever the opportunity to express that love to the person who was the center point of his life.

A slight smile lightened the blue intensity of Steve's eyes. "I know," he said with deep affection. "I've always known." There was a moment of silence, in which Mark let out a breath that seemed to release the last vestiges of tension. Steve's smile deepened. He draped his arm around his father's shoulders and turned him toward the path away from the clearing.

"Come on, Dad; let's go home."

THE END

Many thanks to all of you who have taken the time to write reviews and emails to encourage us! We've had a great time with this story, and if you've enjoyed reading it even half as much as we've enjoyed writing it, then we have been very successful in our first (but hopefully not last) joint effort!

Nonny and Mouse


End file.
